2017 Newbery Award Winner

On January 23, 2017, The Girl Who Drank The Moon written by Kelly Barnhill was awarded the John Newbery Medal. The Newbery Medal was awarded to Kelly Barnhill for adding the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature. This book was originally published in 2016, but was awarded in 2017 for middle grade students from about 8-12 years old.

The Girl Who Drank The Moon is a tale about a young girl raised by a witch. Every year, the people of Protectorate sacrifice a baby to the witch who lives in the forest, hoping that she won’t harm them. What the people of Protectorate don’t know is that the witch, Xan is a gentle and kind witch who lives with a swamp monster named Glerk and a perfectly tiny dragon, Fryian. Xan finds the abandoned and children and delivers them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing them with starlight on their journey. One year while traveling with a child, Xan fed moonlight to the baby instead of starlight, filling the girl with extraordinary magic. Xan decided to take care of her so she would not harm the town’s people. She locks the magic deep down inside of her “adopted” daughter, Luna, to make sure she would not hurt herself.

“In a lot of ways, the genesis of The Girl Who Drank the Moon was similar to the rest of my books—it began with a little knot of text that unwound in my head while I was out for a run. A sentence that pleased me, that stuck in my ear, that carried me, teasing and twisting and winding around my fingers.” Explains Kelly Barnhill, the author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon. “The last thing I expected, when I finally began this book, was a volcanic eruption. Or a volcanic landscape. Or volcanoes in general. Still, once I began, there it was. Waiting. Building. Right under my feet. Like it had been there all along.”