Which Publisher Has Won the Most Newbery Medals This Century?

We’re a quarter of the way through the 21st century. It seems like a good time to take a look at which publisher has won the most Newbery Medals over the past 25 years (no honors included this time – that’s a post for another day).

I dug into the data and made a few discoveries. Let’s take a look.

But first! A note about the data. I folded all wins by imprints into the parent publisher. For instance, Greenwillow books is part of HarperCollins, so all Greenwillow wins (3) get added to the HarperCollins total. Also, I’m listing publishers as they are currently comprised. For instance, wins by Penguin before they merged with Random House are counted in the Penguin Random House total. See all the specific imprint info listed at the bottom of the post.

Here are the bar-graphed results:

If we put this data on a pie chart it looks like this:

A few things I noticed:

• We have a tie at the top! Penguin Random House and HarperCollins share the top of the list with 6 wins each.
• Penguin Random House and HarperCollins books comprise almost half (48%) of the total Newbery Medal winners from the past 25 years.
• Candlewick in the top three! When considering Newbery Medal wins, they are pound-for-pound the most successful publisher so far this century, topping much larger houses like Simon & Schuster and Macmillan.
• No Scholastic! The data made me realize that no Scholastic books have won Newbery Medals in the last 25 years (they have won some honors though). That’s a surprise.
• Every Penguin Random House win was from a different imprint (see them listed below).

What jumps out to you on this list?

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Publisher Guide:

HarperCollins (includes Greenwillow Books and Harper)

Penguin Random House (includes Delacorte Press, Wendy Lamb Books, Alfred A. Knopf, Random House, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Dial Books)

Candlewick Press

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (includes Clarion Books)

Simon & Schuster (includes Antheneum)

Hachette (includes Little, Brown and former Workman imprint Algonquin)

Levine Querido

Macmillan (includes Farrar, Straus, Giroux)

Disney (includes Hyperion)

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