Book Prize Winners at Frances Compton Library - Newbury, NZ Book Awards and More

Most Reading Challenges at St Cuthbert's have a requirement to read an award-winning book - luckily, a lot of the books that win these awards are the best books you might hope to read! Check out lists of different prizes and the books that have won them below, along with our recommendations!

The Newbery Medal for Fiction
We have a list of Newbury Winners here that you can peruse to see which ones are available at the moment. Here are some of our top recommendations!

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech - powerful, mysterious and fun story of a girl on a road trip to find her mother.
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse - a novel in verse set during the dustbowl era of the Great Depression in the United States.
Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins - a story that tells many stories in one, exploring the way our lives 'criss cross' with each other.
Sounder by William H Armstrong - the story of a friendship between boy and dog after his father is sent to prison unfairly.
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool - a girl goes searching for answers in her father's hometown during the Great Depression. A great adventure/mystery.
The Tale of Despereaux by Kate Di Camillo - a fantasy about a very special mouse who longs to be a knight.
Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos - based on true events, this very funny story follows the protagonist over a long hot summer when he is grounded and forced to help his neighbour, an obituary writer. 
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman - set in 13th Century England, this is the (very funny) story of a lord's daughter who absolutely refuses to get married to the man she's been arranged to wed.
Holes by Louis Sachar - a classic mystery set at a desert juvenile facility where the inmates are forced to dig holes every day.
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle - a classic fantasy about a girl determined to find her father, pursuing him through space and time.
Freewater

NZ Book Award for Children and Younger Readers
This is the highest award a New Zealand book can receive - and we have heaps of them here at the Library! See some of them listed on this reading list (the same one as the Newbery list). For a longer rundown of past winners, click here. Here's some of our faves:

2much4u by Vince Ford - a boy takes a series of random jobs to help pay his mum back after wrecking her car in this very funny award-winner!
Mophead by Selina Tusitala Marsh - an awesome graphic novel about growing up Pasifika in New Zealand.
Charlie Tangaroa and the Creature from the Sea by Tania Roxborogh - Cool Percy Jackson-style fantasy series about a boy who finds a mermaid washed ashore.

Ockham Prize
The Ockham Prize is New Zealand's most significant book award. It is a subset of the New Zealand Book Awards. We have a huge range of Ockham winners at the library - so we have a huge range of amazing New Zealand literature! Why not give these titles a go:

Lioness by Emily Perkins - two women in an apartment building find themselves drawn to each other after a corruption scandal rocks one woman's husband's business.
The Axeman's Carnival by Catherine Chidgey - told from the point of view of a magpie named Tama who witnesses the destruction of a marriage in this darkly funny satire. 
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton - this massive but incredible book is set in the early colonial days of New Zealand.
The Big Music by Kirsty Gunn - the story of a dying man trying to create one last great piece of music.
Tū by Patricia Grace - the story of three Māori men who return from war and the secrets they keep.

Nobel Literature Prize
Unlike other awards, this prize is given to a person's overall output, rather than a specific title. Treat this list like a recommendation to go and explore what the winning authors have to offer.

Man Booker Prize
One of the most esteemed prizes a book can receive, the list of Man Booker winners reads like a list of the greatest books written this and last century. We can recommend:

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch - With Ireland controlled by a fascist government, a group of rebels must choose between family and freedom.
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart - A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality and love from the point of view of an Irish working class family.
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders - When the son of President Abraham Lincoln dies, he is sent to a Purgatory-like space where he watches his family grieve. 
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel - thought by some to be the greatest book of the 21st Century so far, this book chronicles the rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the 15th Century, who became advisor to King Henry VIII.
The Life of Pi by Yann Martel - a young Indian boy survives a shipwreck, floating on the ocean in a life raft along with a tiger from his family's zoo.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - a pair of twins have their lives thrown into chaos during India's 'Love Laws' period in this indictment of the caste system and colonialism in India.

Check out the list of nominees for this year's prize! Currently we have Percival Everett's James in the library, along with several others!

Pulitzer Prize
Possibly the highest honour a book can receive, the Pulitzer Prize has been given to many of the most important books of the 20th and 21st Centuries. You've probably heard of many of them! Some of our recommendations include: 

The Nickel Boys - Powerful drama about two boys living at an infamously brutal boarding school during the Segregation era in the USA.
Demon Copperhead - a thrilling modern-day update of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield.
All the Light We Cannot See - wartime drama set in France during the invasion of Nazi Germany.
The Road - haunting post-apocalyptic story that follows a father and son as they try to survive a broken world.
Beloved - Toni Morrison's classic story of a dysfunctional family of freed slaves in the post-Civil War Era, whose house is haunted.
To Kill a Mockingbird - One of the most beloved books of the 20th Century, Harper Lee's book discusses racism from the point of view of a young girl in a small Southern American town. 
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway's simple but profound novella tells the story of an old man trying to catch a giant fish, but is about so much more.
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck's astonishing account of a family who must pack up all their belongings and head West during the Great Depression.

Check out the winners of this year's Pulitzers here.

Carnegie Medal
Much like the Newbery Medal, the UK-based Carnegie Medal awards the best in children's and young adult literature. If you can't find a good Newbery winner, you might want to talk to your teacher about whether a Carnegie winner might be okay to read instead. Here are some favourites of ours:

October October - an eleven year old girl who lives a solitary life with her father in the wilderness finds her life changing after she rescues an owl and her mother comes home.
Look Both Ways - ten stories about ten different young adults as they walk home from school. It's weirder than it sounds!
The Poet X - a frustrated teen in Harlem, New York, learns to pour her angst and pain into her poetry.
One - the heartbreaking story of a pair of conjoined twins who must face the possibility of being separated. Told in verse.
A Monster Calls - a boy grieving the loss of his mother wakes up one night to find a giant monster looking in his window.
Northern Lights - this classic Philip Pullman fantasy tells of an alternative world where your soul lives outside of your body and inter-dimensional travel is possible.