| 2025 |
Erin Entrada Kelly — The First State of Being |
| 2024 |
Dave Eggers — The Eyes and the Impossible |
| 2023 |
Amina Luqman-Dawson — Freewater |
| 2022 |
Donna Barba Higuera — The Last Cuentista |
| 2021 |
Tae Keller — When You Trap a Tiger |
| 2020 |
Jerry Craft — New Kid |
| 2019 |
Meg Medina — Merci Suárez Changes Gears |
| 2018 |
Erin Entrada Kelly — Hello, Universe |
| 2017 |
Kelly Barnhill — The Girl Who Drank the Moon |
| 2016 |
Matt de la Peña — Last Stop on Market Street |
| 2015 |
Kwame Alexander — The Crossover |
| 2014 |
Kate DiCamillo — Flora & Ulysses |
| 2013 |
Katherine Applegate — The One and Only Ivan |
| 2012 |
Jack Gantos — Dead End in Norvelt |
| 2011 |
Clare Vanderpool — Moon Over Manifest |
| 2010 |
Rebecca Stead — When You Reach Me |
| 2009 |
Neil Gaiman — The Graveyard Book |
| 2008 |
Laura Amy Schlitz — Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village |
| 2007 |
Susan Patron — The Higher Power of Lucky |
| 2005 |
Cynthia Kadohata — Kira-Kira |
| 2003 |
Avi — Crispin: The Cross of Lead |
| 2002 |
Linda Sue Park — A Single Shard |
| 2000 |
Christopher Paul Curtis — Bud, Not Buddy |
| 1999 |
Louis Sachar — Holes |
| 1998 |
Karen Hesse — Out of the Dust |
| 1997 |
E. L. Konigsburg — The View from Saturday |
| 1996 |
Karen Cushman — The Midwife's Apprentice |
| 1995 |
Sharon Creech — Walk Two Moons |
| 1994 |
Lois Lowry — The Giver |
| 1993 |
Cynthia Rylant — Missing May |
| 1992 |
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor — Shiloh |
| 1991 |
Jerry Spinelli — Maniac Magee |
| 1990 |
Lois Lowry — Number the Stars |
| 1989 |
Paul Fleischman — Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices |
| 1988 |
Russell Freedman — Lincoln: A Photobiography |
| 1986 |
Patricia MacLachlan — Sarah, Plain and Tall |
| 1985 |
Robin McKinley — The Hero and the Crown |
| 1984 |
Beverly Cleary — Dear Mr. Henshaw |
| 1982 |
Nancy Willard — A Visit to William Blake's Inn |
| 1981 |
Katherine Paterson — Jacob Have I Loved |
| 1980 |
Joan Blos — A Gathering of Days |
| 1979 |
Ellen Raskin — The Westing Game |
| 1978 |
Katherine Paterson — Bridge to Terabithia |
| 1977 |
Mildred D. Taylor — Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry |
| 1976 |
Susan Cooper — The Grey King |
| 1975 |
Virginia Hamilton — M. C. Higgins, the Great |
| 1974 |
Paula Fox — The Slave Dancer |
| 1973 |
Jean Craighead George — Julie of the Wolves |
| 1972 |
Robert C. O'Brien — Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH |
| 1970 |
William H. Armstrong — Sounder |
| 1969 |
Lloyd Alexander — The High King |
| 1965 |
Maia Wojciechowska — Shadow of a Bull |
| 1964 |
Emily Cheney Neville — It's Like This, Cat |
| 1963 |
Madeleine L'Engle — A Wrinkle in Time |
| 1962 |
Elizabeth George Speare — The Bronze Bow |
| 1961 |
Scott O'Dell — Island of the Blue Dolphins |
| 1960 |
Joseph Krumgold — Onion John |
| 1959 |
Elizabeth George Speare — The Witch of Blackbird Pond |
| 1957 |
Virginia Sorensen — Miracles on Maple Hill |
| 1956 |
Jean Lee Latham — Carry On, Mr. Bowditch |
| 1955 |
Meindert DeJong — The Wheel on the School |
| 1954 |
Joseph Krumgold — ...And Now Miguel |
| 1953 |
Ann Nolan Clark — Secret of the Andes |
| 1952 |
Eleanor Estes — Ginger Pye |
| 1951 |
Elizabeth Yates — Amos Fortune, Free Man |
| 1950 |
Marguerite de Angeli — The Door in the Wall |
| 1949 |
Marguerite Henry — King of the Wind |
| 1948 |
William Pène du Bois — The Twenty-One Balloons |
| 1947 |
Carolyn Sherwin Bailey — Miss Hickory |
| 1945 |
Robert Lawson — Rabbit Hill |
| 1944 |
Esther Forbes — Johnny Tremain |
| 1943 |
Elizabeth Gray Vining — Adam of the Road |
| 1942 |
Walter D. Edmonds — The Matchlock Gun |
| 1941 |
Armstrong Sperry — Call It Courage |
| 1940 |
James Daugherty — Daniel Boone |
| 1939 |
Elizabeth Enright — Thimble Summer |
| 1938 |
Kate Seredy — The White Stag |
| 1937 |
Ruth Sawyer — Roller Skates |
| 1936 |
Carol Ryrie Brink — Caddie Woodlawn |
| 1935 |
Monica Shannon — Dobry |
| 1934 |
Cornelia Meigs — Invincible Louisa: the Story of the Author of Little Women |
| 1933 |
Elizabeth Foreman Lewis — Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze |
| 1931 |
Elizabeth Coatsworth — The Cat Who Went to Heaven |
| 1930 |
Rachel Field — Hitty, Her First Hundred Years |
| 1929 |
Eric P. Kelly — The Trumpeter of Krakow |
| 1928 |
Dhan Gopal Mukerji — Gay-Neck, the Story of a Pigeon |
| 1927 |
Will James — Smoky, the Cowhorse |
| 1926 |
Arthur Bowie Chrisman — Shen of the Sea |
| 1925 |
Charles J. Finger — Tales from Silver Lands |
| 1924 |
Charles Hawes — The Dark Frigate |
| 1923 |
Hugh Lofting — The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle |
| 1922 |
Hendrik Willem van Loon — The Story of Mankind |