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Junior Literary Guild

Junior Literary Guild award

The Junior Literary Guild is a commercial book club. It began in 1929 as an enterprise of the Literary Guild. By the 1950s, the majority of their book sales were to public libraries. In 2004 they started listing their Junior Literary Guild selections at their own website. What we refer to as “winners” are their selections for different age groups.


Winners:

Little Blacknose: The Story of a Pioneer (1929)

Early American railroading as seen through the eyes of the Dewitt Clinton, the first steam engine built for the New York Central Railroad.

Read online at archive.org

Author(s): Hildegarde Hoyt Swift
Illustrator(s): Lynd Ward

Courageous Companions (1929)

The story of an English lad who sails with Magellan around the world.

Author(s): Charles Finger
Illustrator(s): James Daugherty

The Flight of the Heron (1930)

Ewen Cameron is out with the ’45 and encounters a British officer Keith Windham who becomes his best friend.

Author(s): D. K. Broster
Illustrator(s): Helene Carter

Witch’s Maiden: A Historical Romance (1930)

Temperance, her parents dead and she only seven years old, is dispossesed by Cromwell’s officers as a Royalist and sent to live with the neighboring witch.

Author(s): Mabel L. Tyrrell
Illustrator(s): Marie A. Lawson

The Adventures of Mario (1930)

Mario, the young hero of the book, helpless after the death of his mother and driven by an inner force as the animals are, grows up in the depths of the forest where he becomes one of the wild things.

Author(s): Waldemar Bonsels
Illustrator(s): Kurt Wiese

Red Horse Hill (1930)

Bud Martin decides to take his bulldog and try New Hampshire. He finds a warm welcome with Uncle John and Aunt Sarah.

Author(s): Stephen W. Meader
Illustrator(s): Lee Townsend

Early Moon (1930)

A collection of poems by the Prairie Poet.

Author(s): Carl Sandburg
Illustrator(s): James Daugherty

Kees (1930)

Kees lives in Holland and has a pet duck named Kleintje.

Author(s): Marian King
Illustrator(s): Elizabeth Enright

Alice and Thomas and Jane (1931)

Three children have adventures in an English seaside town.

Author(s): Enid Bagnold
Illustrator(s): Enid Bagnold
Laurian Jones

The Fairy Circus (1931)

Inspired by a human circus that performs in their meadow, the fairies put on a circus of their own for the woodland creatures.

Author(s): Dorothy P. Lathrop
Illustrator(s): Dorothy P. Lathrop

Young Trajan (1931)

In this story of old Rumania, Frosina goes to school to learn weaving, but learns much more when she is called home again.

Hail Columbia (1931)

A history of the United States of America from its discovery to 1931.

Author(s): Marie A. Lawson
Illustrator(s): Marie A. Lawson

Swallows and Amazons (1931)

The four Swallows receive permission from their sailor father to sail by themselves on one of the English lakes in a telegram: ‘BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WONT DROWN.’

Read online at archive.org. 

Author(s): Arthur Ransome
Illustrator(s): Helene Carter

The Gleam in the North (1931)

When the Jacobites call on Ewan Cameron’s honor, he must enter into the conspiracy again in this second installment of the Jacobite Trilogy that began with The Flight of the Heron.

Author(s): D. K. Broster
Illustrator(s): Helene Carter

Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze (1932)

At age thirteen Young Fu is apprenticed to a coppersmith in the big city of Chungking.

Read online at archive.org

Author(s): Elizabeth Foreman Lewis
Illustrator(s): Kurt Wiese

Swallowdale (1932)

The Swallows return to the lake for the summer holidays but on their third day disaster strikes and they are marooned on shore.

Author(s): Arthur Ransome
Illustrator(s): Helene Carter

Swallowdale (1932)

The Swallows return to the lake for the summer holidays but on their third day disaster strikes and they are marooned on shore.

Author(s): Arthur Ransome
Illustrator(s): Helene Carter

Auntie (1932)

Celia Jane spends a year with her Auntie, then when she is grown up and has a son of her own Auntie comes to live with her.

Snipp, Snapp, Snurr and the Red Shoes (1932)

It is mother’s birthday but the triplets are short of funds, so they go to work to earn the money for mother’s birthday present.

Read online at archive.org. 

Author(s): Maj Lindman
Illustrator(s): Maj Lindman

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