Newbery medal for best children's book is given to Erin Entrada Kelly's 'The First State of Being'

Erin Entrada Kelly’s “The First State of Being,” a coming-of-age story that blends time travel and the approaching millennium of the year 2000, has won the John Newbery Medal for the year’s outstanding children’s book. The Randolph Caldecott Medal for best picture story went to “Chooch Helped,” a tale of Cherokee siblings illustrated by Rebecca Lee Kunz and written by Andrea L. Rogers. Chanel Miller’s “Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All” was a runner-up for the Newbery prize. Miller is also the author “Know My Name,” her acclaimed memoir about being sexually assaulted on the Stanford University campus.