And the winner is...

The surveys have been surveyed, the totals tallied. We have a winner folks! This year's 2013 Mock Caldecott winner is.... Unspoken by Henry Cole.

Our short list included: Extra Yarn, Nighttime Ninja, Red Knit Cap Girl and Step Gently Out, and Unspoken.

I must say I am pretty darn happy that a group of second-graders chose this book over some of the competition. It would be pretty easy to assume that Nighttime Ninja would sneak away with the prize but it wasn't to be so.

About Unspoken my students said, "I loved how he used just pencil and made it old-fashioned" and "It was very creepy" and "it's so real, & so calm, & peaceful, & I can't believe the illastrater(sic) just uses pencil to make that texture."

Pretty impressive stuff!

You can see how other Mock Caldecott contests played out here at Horn Book Magazine
and of course see what wins the actual Caldecott Medal this year!

Step Gently Out

I have been reading this lovely book to my 2nd grade classes this last week. We are in the middle of our Mock Caldecott unit and I am ever hopeful that a book illustrated with photographs will one day bear a Caldecott Medal. Surprisingly, my students have really taken to this quiet book and appreciate the beautifully composed close-ups of insects.

But where to put it? My original thought had been to catalog the book under Verse (after all it is a poem) but I worried that it wouldn't be found there. I began to ask my classes where they would want this book. I expected them to say Animals - Bugs. On the last page there is a paragraph of information about each insect featured in the book. Interestingly, about 80% of my students have asked me to catalog the book under Nature. When I express my surprise "isn't it a book about bugs?" and worry "will anyone find it in Nature?" I am assured by their articulate comments: "it's a book about nature, about looking at things around you." and "its more than bugs, Tali."

So, into Nature it will go where hopefully many people will have a chance to explore it's beauty and the world beyond it.

Earl knew

Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet is not only a great read but chock full of information. Congratulations to Melissa for winning the Sibert Medal! To see all the medal winners visit the ALSC webpage.

PS - Earl is the library Yeti. He was created by the son of our Shop teacher in a puppet making class at the School of Visual Arts and was featured that year at Rockefeller Center in NYC.

Mock Caldecott 2012

With the real Caldecott announcement just a couple of weeks away, the second grade is wrapping up its Mock Caldecott by looking at not one, but two books in the final week.

I had originally planned on sharing Joyce Sidman's new poetry book Swirl by Swirl illustrated by Beth Krommes. After reading it with two classes, I realized I just wasn't connecting to it as beautiful as the book was. We have spent the last several months talking about technique, color, line and perspective by looking at Grandpa Green by Lane Smith, Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell, All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon and Katherine Tillotson, and Emma Dilemma by Kristine O'Connell George and Nancy Carpenter. We visited the Society of Illustrators to see the Original Art exhibit they present every November. My students were primed to talk about art and picture books and they could tell I wasn't feeling it.

Back to the drawing board. Sifting through lists and blog posts I found 2 promising titles.

Standing in the bookstore, I realized I couldn't make a decision between Salley Mavor's A Pocketful of Posies and Giles Laroche's If You Lived Here.

I would have to use both.

Maybe it's my enthusiasm for the amazing art in these two books, but the children have embraced them. They notice all the details: seashells and wooden beads, shadows on the snow, and never fail to amaze me with their thoughtful comments and their excited promises to vote for one

of these books. Will one of these two late entries win our Caldecott? We'll find out next week.