At the end of the last Heavy Medal season, Wendy announced–

I’m now retiring from Newbery fandom. This was my fifth year, and I read more widely than ever before thanks to the great Seattle Public Library system that I’m now privy to (72 books that I considered eligible for the Newbery, plus a number of Printz, Sibert, Caldecott, etc), and I am just burned out.

Burnout is a serious problem if you try to read like the Newbery committee does year after year which is one reason why Nina and I never feel compelled to read or discuss every single worthy title, and why one of our mantras here has always been that we are more interested in simulating the Newbery process than in predicting it.  No matter how widely you read in the field, you will always be surprised by something.  Case in point, last year Newbery committee Roxanne Feldman listed her top 40 books, and among those books were the following which were never discussed or, I think, even mentioned here either in a post or in the comments (although I could be wrong).  I had never even heard of quite a few of them.