The Heavy Medal Book List Discussion Schedule (and more fun stuff coming in the next six weeks)

We’re only six weeks away from the announcement of the 2025 Newbery Medal. The real Newbery Committee will spend that time re-reading books, discussing the books (virtually and in-person) and finally making their selections. We’ll be busy (but not as busy as them) here on Heavy Medal too. Here’s what’s coming up as we get close to that January 27^th announcement:

Heavy Medal Award Committee (HMAC):  We have a great bunch of volunteers for our HMAC this year. We’ll share the final roster later this week.

Heavy Medal Book List (HMBL): We shared our final list of 15 titles last week. These are the titles we’ll be discussing and voting on from late December into mid-January.

Practice Discussion:  Before we get to our official discussion, we’ll do a “warm-up” so everyone can get a feel for what it’s all about. We’ll use a book that was one of last cuts when we finalized the HBML: OLIVETTI by Allie Millington. We’ll discuss the book starting on Friday, December 27^th, but it won’t be on our Mock Newbery ballot.

Real Discussions:  Starting on Monday, December 30^th, we’ll begin discussing the 15 books on the HMBL, with a new title almost every day. HMAC members will introduce the books and participate heavily in the discussion, but we also encourage readers who are not on the HMAC to join in. The schedule with book titles and dates is below.

The Final Five:  After all 15 books have been discussed, the HMAC will select their top five books, aka The Final Five. These will be the books discussed during our Live Webcast.

Live Webcast:  The members of HMAC will discuss that Final Five in a live webcast via Zoom on Friday, January 24^th at 1:00 pm EST.  You can sign up for this free School Library Journal at this link. The HMAC will select a Mock Newbery winner at the end of the event. Webcast viewers will also cast votes for a winner.

Heavy Medal Readers’ Poll:  While the webcast will be all about the Final Five, we will also hold a Readers’ Poll, open to everyone, with all 15 titles on our HBML in the running. The Readers’ Poll will be open for several days starting January 21^st.

Youth Media Awards:  On the Monday after our webcast, the real Newbery winner will be announced, along with all of the other 2025 Youth Media Awards. You can watch it all live starting at 10:00 am EST on January 27th. It happens in Phoenix, AZ this year, so us west coast people don’t have to get up quite so early. The link for the webcast is here.

We’ll also conclude our series of posts on Newbery Author Spotlights this Friday. Here’s our discussion schedule for the 15 books on the HMBL: