Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

1990 Newbery Medal

In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be brave and courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis.

Comments below by Cassie N., 3rd grade

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes

1945 Newbery Honor

In winning a medal she is no longer there to receive, a tight-lipped little Polish girl teaches her classmates a lesson.

Comments below by Cassie N., Sophie W., and Paige C., 3rd graders

A Gathering of Days by Joan W. Blos

1979 Newbery Medal

The journal of a fourteen-year-old girl, kept the last year she lived on the family farm, records daily events in her small New Hampshire town, her father's remarriage, and the death of her best friend.

Comments below by: Cassie N., 3rd grade

Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi

2003 Newbery Medal

Falsely accused of theft and declared a "wolf's head" (whom any man may kill), humble, pious Crispin flees his feudal village. Taken in as an apprentice by an itinerant juggler called Bear, Crispin learns about music and mummery, about freedom and questioning fate, and about his own mysterious parentage. Avi writes a fast-paced, action-packed adventure comfortably immersed in its fourteenth-century setting.

Comments below posted by Trey J., 6th grade

Sounder by William H. Armstrong

1970 Newbery Medal
Comments below posted by Cassie N., 3rd grade