Scott O'Dell established this award to encourage new authors to write historical fiction. He believes such books help children to better understand the historical backdrop behind what has gone on in history.

2008: Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

2007: The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages

2006: The Game of Silence by Louise Erdrich

2005: Worth by A LaFaye

2004: A River Between Us by Richard Peck

2003: Trouble don't Last by Shelley Pearsall

2002: The Land by Mildred D.Taylor

2001: The Art of Keeping Cool by Janet Taylor Lisle

2000: Two Suns in the Sky by Miriam Bat-Ami

1999: Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule by Harriette Gillem Robinet

1998: Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

1997: Jip: His Story by Katherine Paterson

1996: The Bomb by Theodore Taylor

1995: Under the Blood Red Sun by Graham Salisbury

1994: Bull Run by Paul Fleischman

1993: Morning Girl by Michael Dorris

1992: Stepping on the Cracks by Mary Downing Hahn

1991: A Time of Troubles  by Pieter Van Raven

1990: Shades of Gray by Carolyn Reeder

1989: The Honorable Prison  by Lyll Becerra de Jenkins

1988: Charley Skedaddle by Patricia Beatty

1987: Streams to the River, River to the Sea by Scott O'Dell

1986: Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

1985: The Fighting Ground by Avi

1984: The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare