1973
- The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper
- The Cat Who Wished to Be a Man by Lloyd Alexander
- An Island in a Green Sea by Mabel Esther Allan
- No Way of Telling by Emma Smith
1972
- Tristan and Iseult by Rosemary Sutcliff
1971
- (Winner) A Room Made of Windows by Eleanor Cameron (Atlantic-Little, Brown)
- Beyond the Weir Bridge by Hester Burton (Crowell)
- Come by Here by Olivia Coolidge (Houghton)
- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien (Atheneum)
1970
- (Winner) The Intruder by John Rowe Townsend (Lippincott)
- Where the Lilies Bloom by Vera and Bill Cleaver (Lippincott)
1969
- (Winner) A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (Parnassus)
- Turi’s Poppa by Elizabeth Borton de Treviño
- Flambards by K. M. Peyton
- The Pigman by Paul Zindel
1968
- (Winner) The Spring Rider by John Lawson (Crowell)
- Young Mark by E. M. Almedingen (Farrar)
- Dark Venture by Audrey White Beyer (Knopf)
- Smith by Leon Garfield (Pantheon)
- The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig (Crowell)
1967
- (Winner) The Little Fishes by Erik Christian Haugaard