Newbery Medal: 2000s

Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.

As the only girl in a Finnish American family of seven brothers, May Amelia Jackson resents being expected to act like a lady while growing up in Washington state in 1899.

Tomie's family starts building their new house at 26 Fairmount Avenue in 1938, just as a hurricane hits town, starting off a busy, crazy year. Tomie has many adventures all his own, including eating chocolate with his Nana Upstairs, only to find out--the hard way--that they have eaten chocolate laxative. He tries to skip kindergarten when he finds out he won't learn to read until first grade. "I'll be back next year," he says. When Tomie goes to see Snow White, he creates another sensation.

During the recession of 1937, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice is sent to live with her feisty, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois and comes to a better understanding of this fearsome woman.

When sixteen-year-old Hope and the aunt who has raised her move from Brooklyn to Mulhoney, Wisconsin, to work as waitress and cook in the Welcome Stairways diner, they become involved with the diner owner's political campaign to oust the town's corrupt mayor.

Ten-year-old India Opal Buloni describes her first summer in the town of Naomi, Florida, and all the good things that happen to her because of her big ugly dog Winn-Dixie.

Joey, who is still taking medication to keep him from getting too wired, goes to spend the summer with the hard-drinking father he has never known and tries to help the baseball team he coaches win the championship.

Thirteen-year-old Sophie and her cousin Cody record their transatlantic crossing aboard the Wanderer, a forty-five foot sailboat, which, along with uncles and another cousin, is en route to visit their grandfather in England.

Tree-ear, a thirteen-year-old orphan in medieval Korea, lives under a bridge in a potters' village, and longs to learn how to throw the delicate celadon ceramics himself.

Eleven-year-old Primrose, living in a small fishing village in British Columbia, recounts her experiences and all that she learns about human nature after her parents are lost at sea.

George Washington Carver was born a slave in Missouri about 1864 and was raised by the childless white couple who had owned his mother. In 1877 he left home in search of an education, eventually earning a master's degree. In 1896, Booker T. Washington invited Carver to start the agricultural department at the all-black-staffed Tuskegee Institute, where he spent the rest of his life seeking solutions to the poverty among landless black farmers by developing new uses for soil-replenishing crops such as peanuts, cowpeas, and sweet potatoes. Carver's achievements as a botanist and inventor were balanced by his gifts as a painter, musician, and teacher. This Newbery Honor Book and Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book by Marilyn Nelson provides a compelling and revealing portrait of Carver's complex, richly interior, profoundly devout life.

Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth-century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret.

In a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El Patron, the 140-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the United States.

A troublesome twelve-year-old orphan, staying with an elderly artist who needs her, remembers the only other time she was happy in a foster home, with a family that truly seemed to care about her.

Twelve-year-old Hattie Owen's life is turned upside down with the arrival of a mentally disabled uncle no one has ever spoken about.

Jake, a budding juvenile delinquent, is sent for home schooling to the arty and eccentric Applewhite family's Creative Academy, where he discovers talents and interests he never knew he had.

The adventures of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse of unusual talents, the princess that he loves, a servant girl, and a rat determined to bring them all to ruin.

On a summer visit to her grandmother's cottage by the ocean, twelve-year-old Martha gains perspective on the death of a classmate, on her relationship with her grandmother, on her feelings for an older boy, and on her plans to be a writer.

A portrait of the rampant Yellow Fever plague of 1793 that devastated Philadelphia.

Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s, and the despair felt when one sister becomes terminally ill.

The life of Marian Anderson and her 1936 concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

In 1911, Turner dislikes his new home in Maine, but things improve when he meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from a nearby island community founded by former slaves that the town fathers want to change into a tourist spot.

Teenagers in a small town experience new thoughts and feelings, question their identities, connect, and disconnect as they search for the meaning of life and love.

A feline descendant of Dick Whittington's famous cat of English folklore appears at a barnyard plagued by rats.

Discusses the Hitler Youth organization in Germany, those who resisted the Nazi movement, and Jewish youths and others who were targeted by the Third Reich.

While attending a strict academy for potential princesses with the other girls from her mountain village, fourteen-year-old Miri discovers unexpected talents and connections to her homeland.

The making of "Show ways," or quilts which once served as secret maps for freedom-seeking slaves, is a tradition passed from mother to daughter in the author's family.

Fearing that her legal guardian plans to abandon her to return to France, ten-year-old aspiring scientist Lucky Trimble determines to run away while also continuing to seek the Higher Power that will bring stability to her life.

As she turns twelve during the summer of 1953, Penny gains new insights into herself and her family while also learning a secret about her father's death. It's 1953 and 11-year-old Penny dreams of a summer of butter pecan ice cream, swimming, and baseball. But nothing's that easy in Penny's family. For starters, she can't go swimming because her mother's afraid she'll catch polio at the pool. To make matters worse, her favorite uncle is living in a car. Her Nonny cries every time her father's name is mentioned. And the two sides of her family aren't speaking to each other!

After inheriting her uncle's homesteading claim in Montana, sixteen-year-old orphan Hattie Brooks travels from Iowa in 1917 to make a home for herself and encounters some unexpected problems related to the war being fought in Europe.

A collection of short one-person plays featuring characters, between ten and fifteen years old, who live in or near a thirteenth-century English manor.

In 1860, eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman, the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, a haven for slaves fleeing the American south, tries to bring to justice a preacher who has stolen money that was to be used to buy a family's freedom.

In 1967, on Wednesday afternoons, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood and his teacher, Mrs. Baker, read the plays of William Shakespeare while his classmates go to Catechism or Hebrew School.

When a new, white student nicknamed "The Jesus Boy" joins her sixth grade class in the winter of 1971, Frannie's growing friendship with him makes her start to see some things in a new light.

Nobody Owens is a normal boy, except that he has been raised by ghosts and other denizens of the graveyard.

An old hound that has been chained up at his hateful owner's run-down shack, and two kittens born underneath the house, endure separation, danger, and many other tribulations in their quest to be reunited and free.

Cuba has fought three wars for independence, and still she is not free. This history in verse creates a lyrical portrait of Cuba.

Recounts the adventures of Mibs Beaumont, whose thirteenth birthday has revealed her "savvy"--a magical power unique to each member of her family--just as her father is injured in a terrible accident.

In 1996 Queens, NY, three girls bond over their shared love of Tupac Shakur's music, as together they try to make sense of the unpredictable world in which they live.