http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeathByNewberyMedal

Wallace Wallace, No More Dead Dogs "The dog always dies. Go to the library and pick out a book with an award sticker and a dog on the cover. Trust me, that dog is going down."

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There is a Slice of Life story about childhood and coming of age. The main character has a best friend (an animal, another child, or a family member) who is a source of joy, wisdom, and understanding in their life. This friend is often frailer, more unworldly, or otherwise more "special" than The Protagonist. Bonus points if the character is cute or adorable.

At the end of the story, this very special best friend is abruptly killed off, usually in a clear-cut case of Diabolus ex Machina. A favorite trick is to have the death happen entirely off-screen. The more horribly poignant, the better.

All this is generally accompanied by lots of "end of the innocence" angsting from the main character, along the lines of "That was the day my childhood ended..." Really, it's just the author's way of having a child suddenly make the jump to adulthood via a single defining tragedy.

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The Newbery Medal is a prestigious award given to American novels written for children. Even a nomination without a win (called a Newbery Honor) can net your book a healthy amount of prestige. To win one, it helps a lot to use a story like this. The British equivalent is the Carnegie Medal , which has a similar reputation.

Bridge to Terabithia won a Newbery for its handling of the topics embodied by this trope. Thirteen years later, Shiloh may have won its medal because it didn't go for the easy win by killing off the dog at the end (there were still three sequels to be written, after all). Still, most books for "young readers" (and similar movies) deal with these issues in a fairly Anvilicious fashion, and are obviously bucking for critical acclaim or recognition by killing off a beloved character in a children's book.

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This trope is so pervasive, some readers expect that the most lovable character won't get to see the end of a critically acclaimed work of fiction. They're Too Good for This Sinful Earth, after all.

Remember, one reader's predictable, Narm-filled Award Bait can be another's Heartwarming Childhood Classic that will always hold a special place on their bookshelf.

Compare Oscar Bait (which often employs the same principle), True Art Is Angsty, The Plot Reaper, and Manic Pixie Dream Girl (not a coming of age, but the character of spirit, spunk, and unconventional wisdom is very likely to die by the end). Contrast Dog Got Sent to a Farm, when adults avoid telling children the truth about death.

This trope is about a character's death as a critical aspect of the storyline they're in. Any instances where a character is killed with an actual Newbery Medal should go to Improvised Weapon (or Once Killed a Man with a Noodle Implement if it's not shown). Also, do not confuse with a medal awarded for dying from a newbie ("newb") mistake.

And see these two AV Club lists .

As a Death Trope, all Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.

Examples

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Newbery Winners and Honorable Mentions

Anime & Manga

Comic Strips

Film

Literature

Live Action TV

Music

The video for "Happier" by Bastille chronicles the life of a dog and its owner starting with a birthday party where she gets it as a present to... well, the line "I think that we both know the way that the story ends" plays during that first scene, and could not be more appropriate.

The narrator's best friend in Meat Loaf's "Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are ," who is killed in a plane crash.

," who is killed in a plane crash. The song "Old Shep" by Red Foley (covered by Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and others) features the narrator talking about how his beloved dog had gotten old and blind, so he had to shoot him in the head.

Video Games

In Rule of Rose, your loyal dog Brown is the object of the Princess of the Red Rose's jealous tyranny.

Despite being predicted by several fans and even lampshaded by the developers themselves, Riley, your dog companion in Call of Duty: Ghosts, averts this trope narrowly. Riley is injured by enemy gunfire and evacuated by helicopter, but he ends up just fine by the start of the next mission. Hesh: Sorry, boy. Your job's done. You're going with Merrick.

In Portal riffs on this trope by insinuating that you develop an emotional attachment to a "companion cube" that you need to carry around to solve a level's puzzle. GlaDOS tells you that the companion cube does not actually love you, and ultimately requires you to "euthanize" it at the end of the level. She then chides you for cruelty by being so quick to destroy your only companion. Graffiti from Doug Rattmann includes tearful epitaphs to his own companion cube. This was all added after the designers noticed that testers were reluctant to destroy their cubes. The only reason the cubes were marked as special to begin with was to let players know that they'd need them throughout the level. Ultimately Portal 2 has a callback when at the end of the game, your scorched companion cube is kicked out the test facility door along with you.

Fable II has your sister in the beginning of the game and your dog at the end. With the right DLC, you can resurrect your dog. Or you can just choose to resurrect your loved ones (which includes your dog) almost ten minutes after the dog dies. It's not like the other choices do anything important. Haunting Ground: Hewie - a white German Shepherd dog - is introduced early on, immediately comes to Fiona's aid after she frees him, and continues to act as her sole companion and protector for the game. Mid-way through the game, he will run off into the forest to tackle a Stalker, and gets shot. If you didn't treat him well enough, he dies and you get a Bad End. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is arguably one of these- though the person who dies isn't frail, they are the protagonist's (one of them, anyway) faithful companion, and their death both teaches him a valuable lesson and launches him on the path to adulthood. It feels like it's this trope.

Mother 3 has Lucas getting more mature after he recovers from his mom Hinawa's death, and this again happens when his brother, Claus, commits suicide.

In Ori and the Blind Forest's prologue, Naru, Ori's adoptive mother, dies of starvation following the blinding and decay of the forest, though she is brought Back from the Dead near the end of the game.

In Hiveswap, protagonist Joey Claire's in-game narrative refers to this trope directly when interacting with the books on her shelf in the first room of the game. She uses the medal as a warning for which books to get and not get as she loathes this trope.

Webcomics

Referenced in the Alt Text to this xkcd strip: When I was a kid, someone told me the ending of The Giver was ambiguous, which surprised me. I had just assumed Jonah died — because the book had a medal on the cover and I knew grown-ups liked stories where sad stuff happens at the end for no reason.

xkcd strip: Referenced in I'm My Own Mascot here .

Western Animation