Your Fall Newbery/Caldecott 2025 ‘Hey, Keep an Eye Out’ Lists

Things are starting to get serious in the Newbery and Caldecott world. The committees are making nominations and the pool of potential winners is growing smaller. Seems like a good time to take a look at the 2025 Mock Newbery and Caldecott lists on Goodreads.

As always, it’s important to remember that these lists are open to voting by any Goodreads user (so DEFINITELY take them with a grain of salt), but they are sometimes fairly accurate.

First up, Mock Newbery (click to enlarge).

No surprise that Kate DiCamillo tops this list, as she has two Newbery Medals to her name (so far) and just keeps putting out great books. And something to keep an eye on: The First State of Being has some potential to be the first book to win the National Book Award and a Newbery Medal since Holes did it in 1998, as Erin Entrada Kelly’s book was just named a NBA finalist.

On to Mock Caldecott (click to enlarge).

A bunch of former Caldecott Medal and Honor winners on this list, including Aaron Becker, the Pumphrey brothers, Sophie Blackall, Michaela Goade, Brendan Wenzel and more. An interesting one to keep an eye on might be The Yellow Bus by Loren Long, as he has never received Caldecott recognition before.

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