Strawberry Girl is a Newbery medal

Newbery Medal

The John Newbery Medal is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association . The award is given to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The award has been given since 1922. ...

 winning novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 written and illustrated by Lois Lenski

Lois Lenski

Lois Lenski was a popular and prolific American writer of children's and young adult fiction.One of her projects was a collection of regional novels about children across the United States...

. It was first published in 1945.

Set in the U.S. state

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 in the early 20th century, the story deals with two families, the Boyers and the Slaters. The Boyers move to Florida to raise strawberries

Strawberry

Fragaria is a genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, commonly known as strawberries for their edible fruits. Although it is commonly thought that strawberries get their name from straw being used as a mulch in cultivating the plants, the etymology of the word is uncertain. There...

. They come into conflict with their new neighbors, the Slaters, who raise cattle

Cattle

Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

and let their animals roam loose. The two main characters are Birdie Boyer, the "Strawberry Girl" of the book's title, and Shoestring Slater, whose pony ruins the Boyers' strawberries. The feud between the two families heightens through the book, but they reconcile by the end of the novel.