Today the Newbery Books for 2015 were announced.

Of course this means that I needed to update my Newbery Challenge spreadsheet and add the books to the list.

The winner of the Newbery Medal this year was The Crossover by Kwame Alexander. I had not read this book, so quickly went on line after the announcement had been made and requested it from the library. Tonight I went and picked it up from the library and have already read the first 50 pages.

The book is written in verse and is about twin boys who play basketball. I am enjoying it so far.

Here were my stats before the announcement of the Newbery winners earlier today. The total is of for both the Medal and Honor books. You can see that I had read all the Newbery Medal winners and 292 or 73.55% of the Newbery books.

Along with the announcement of the Newbery Medal winner there were also two Honor books announced. I updated my spreadsheet and now I have no longer read all the Medal winners. I need to catch back up again.

I had already read one of the Honor books that were announced today, so my percentage only dropped about a quarter percent instead of a half percent.

By tomorrow night I should be caught back up with the Newbery Medal winners.

One of the Newbery Honor books announced today was Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. This book is also written in verse and is autobiographical as the author shares her experiences from growing up in the 50’s and 60’s.

The other Newbery Honor book is El Deafo by Cece Bell which is a graphic novel. I have not seen this book yet, but do have it on request from the library. It has to come from another branch, so I will not have it for several days.

I find it interesting that we have two books written in verse and one graphic novel. Where is the prose this year?

Steven