Criss Cross is a novel by Lynne Rae Perkins that won the 2006 Newbery Medal for excellence in children's literature. Lynne Rae Perkins (born 1956) is a Newbery Medal winning American writer and illustrator of books for children. ... The John Newbery Medal is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children of the American Library Association (ALA) to the author of the most outstanding American book for children. ...

The book, set in the 1960s or 1970s, concerns the coming-of-age of a group of four small town teenagers. It consists of humorous vignettes, illustrations, photographs, and poems.

“Writing in a wry, omniscient third-person narrative voice, Perkins deftly captures the tentativeness and incompleteness of adolescence,” said Award Committee Chair Barbara Barstow. “In 38 brief chapters, this poetic, postmodern novel experiments with a variety of styles: haiku, song lyrics, question-and-answer dialogue and split-screen scenarios. With seeming yet deliberate randomness, Perkins writes an orderly, innovative, and risk-taking book in which nothing happens and everything happens.”

The Newbery Medal is named for eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The American Library Association (ALA) promotes libraries and library education in the United States and internationally. ...