Claim: A Wrinkle in Time has been critically acclaimed.

The John Newbery Medal is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children , a division of the American Library Association -LRB- ALA -RRB- . The award is given to the author of `` the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children . '' Named for John Newbery , an 18th-century English publisher of juvenile books , the Newbery was proposed by Frederic G. Melcher in 1921 , making it the first children 's book award in the world . The medal was designed by Rene Paul Chambellan and depicts an author giving his work -LRB- a book -RRB- to a boy and a girl to read .   The Newbery and the Caldecott Medal are considered the two most prestigious awards for children 's literature in the United States . Many bookstores and libraries have Newbery sections ; popular television shows interview the winners ; textbooks include lists of Newbery winners , and many master 's and doctoral theses are written about them .   Beside the Newbery Medal , the committee awards a variable number of citations to worthy runners-up , called Newbery Honors or Newbery Honor Books . Runners-up had been identified annually from the start , with a few exceptions only during the 1920s ; all those runners-up were named Newbery Honor Books retroactively , when the `` Honor '' was introduced 1971 , and may display the Newbery Honor Seal .  As few as zero and as many as eight have been named , but from 1938 the number of Honors or runners-up has been one to five . The Honor Books must be a subset of the runners-up on the final ballot , either the leading runners-up on that ballot or the leaders on one further ballot that excludes the winner .   Every book considered must be written by a United States citizen or resident and must be published first or simultaneously in the United States in English during the preceding year .