Poison

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Titles and illustrators…
Bluebird (Bob Staake)
Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909 (Melissa Sweet)
Brick by Brick (Floyd Cooper)
Building Our House (Jonathan Bean)
The Dark (Jon Klassen)
Frog Song (Gennady Spirin)
Have You Seen My New Blue Socks? (Sergio Ruzzier)
Light in the Darkness (James E. Ransome)
Lucky Ducklings (Nancy Carpeter)
Nelson Mandela (Kadir Nelson)
Ol’ Mama Squirrel (David Ezra Stein)
On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein (Vladimir Radunsky)
Picture a Tree (Barbara Reid)
Red Hat (Lita Judge)
Something to Prove: The Great Satchel Paige (Floyd Cooper)
A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin (Melisa Sweet)

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The Gryphon  award was announced today and two of out favorites are there. This will make Lolly smile.

Feel free to post links to other picture book awards in the comments. Many of us have a little addiction to lists like this.

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I am having some issues with these silly pictures…so I will just caption them and hope for the best!

I visited the Horn Book booth for a bit.

I ran into two of my favorite guys. One is Roger Sutton. The other is my husband, Dean Schneider, fresh off his book committee work.

The Notables Committee members have a LOT of books to consider…and they cannot have a list of four hundred books…

Here they are, talking about Notable books.

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First, I have been looking at books for 2013. I just want to prove to Lolly and Roger that I am always working! Though I have seen many, many books that show promise, this one really blew me away. It’s coming out in April and is called On a Beam of Light. Here is the link. I read it at the booth and am working in sleep deprivation mode, but, even with compromised judgment, I think this is one to watch. I was excited to see that Vladimir Radunsky is a naturalized US citizen now.

Second, there were some familiar books displayed…sometimes together. I never notice who publishes what, but apparently these two are from the same house.

Third, my book enabler (Deb Taylor) and I have held back on grabbing books, but we still have been hauling things like pack mules.

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After the winner is (finally, sometimes) chosen, ”The committee then addresses the question of whether to name honor books. The committee may name as many or as few as it chooses, or none, keeping in mind that the books should be truly distinguished, not merely general contenders. Honor books may only be chosen from among those that appeared on the final medal-winning ballot. When honor books are announced to the public, they are announced in alphabetical order, by author, so as to accord equal honor to all books.”

So, there you are in your little committee room, bathing in the happiness that you and your new best friends have chosen THE winner. You take a little break, pour a cup of tea and your chair takes a breath. “Now we will decide on honor books.”

There are a few possibilities for what might have led up to choosing the winner. The winner might have been almost unanimous, with one ballot doing the trick.  OR each member might have voted for a different first place book. The winner and  one other book could have been neck and neck, with the rest of the pack close behind or far behind. If that happens, all the first place votes probably went to the two main contenders and there are just scraps of votes left for any other title. See how sticky and tough it could get?

It can be daunting to gear up for another round of discussions when things are not crystal clear. Sometime it is perfectly clear.

And here is what we had on the Mock Caldecott here:

So, you see our dilemma. Without the luxury of time to vote and talk and vote some more, we just had to decide–a lot of honor books (say six) or the very chintzy two that we went with. I am generous by nature and love a huge stack of  honor books. HOWEVER, I respect the process and have always supported these committees’ decisions. I just wish it always worked out to have a winner and 3-4 honor books.

If you look at the first place votes alone (and, to torture myself, I do), you will see that Extra Yarn would still be the winner, that Z is for Moose would be second and Chloe and the Lion and Unspoken would be next, with Green coming in fifth and A Home for Bird would be seventh. How much EASIER would it be if the first place votes lined up nicely with the total vote? A lot easier. I can just tell you what Lolly and I did. At 7:00 AM Pacific time, we talked it out. We both agreed that those second and third place votes count and that the total vote tally had natural cutoff points. The winner was clear. The next two titles were virtually tied, and the rest were 40-50 points behind in a tight blob. Case closed. Unlike the real committee, it is NOT a state secret. You can see the votes.

How would you, on your committee of one person, have decided?

Graph showing total tallies for all nine books

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Here is how I have hosted a Mock Caldecott Committee with my second graders.

I probably don’t do anything much different from others who run Mock Caldecotts. We look at the criteria, show some books that seem to especially meet each criterion, then look at current books that appeal to me and to other reviewers. (I look at a lot of journals to find out what other people are loving.) I usually throw in a few which have not been as well reviewed, but that I think second graders would love. (This year it’s Big Mean Mike.)

I print off the criteria–the official ALSC language and a translation into second gradespeak. We talk criteria for a bit and I keep the discussion firmly linked to them. I read the Caldecott books from August to December in a casual, reading aloud way. I keep them in a basket which is labeled “Caldecott Possibilities.” By the time we get to December, there are too many to talk about, so either I choose about ten or they vote on ten. (When I started writing this blog, I used our list as the class’s list for the most part.)

Then, I read each book again, first with no words and then with text. They take notes as I read and then spend about five minutes taking further notes. Then we drag our chairs in a circle and talk about that book, following the CCBC book discussion guidelines. I usually present the book for less than 30 seconds just to start. We start with what we appreciate and then move on to concerns. I ask them to return to their notes and assign a 0-10 rating scale. Repeat with each book.

About halfway through, I randomly assign a child to be the chair of the committee and another to present the book to the group. Some years I have them prepare in advance for this job, usually I just take them by surprise. They never ever disappoint.

On the Wednesday or Thursday before the announcements, we vote. We follow the procedures set out by ALSC and vote until we have a winner and 2-5 honor books. It is very very important to count the votes one at a time, on the board. Counting is when they start to realize the power of the second and third place votes. (first gets 4, second gets 3 and third gets 2) They add up.

I will post my class’s results in the comments.

We want to hear yours. I especially want to hear about the emotional responses your committee had to the procedure and results.

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Lolly has constructed this dandy table and I have done the math. (Fingers crossed that I haven’t messed anything up. Frantic calculating while second graders are entering the room is not in my normal skill set.)

Behold the power of weighted voting! Behold the power of the second place votes! Look at the third place column and feel the anxiety of What To Vote For Last.

This leaves us with nine titles for the second (and last) ballot. We picked any title that garnered more than 150 votes. Here is the place where some of you might want to have a moment of silence for books that are now off the table. Or maybe a sigh of relief for those that have held on by a thread.

We had more than 300 people voting.  As we enter into our second (and final) vote, we would love to have at least as many voters. We’ve decided to post the second ballot later this afternoon — earlier than scheduled –  but will leave the polling tool up until 9 a.m. Friday as originally planned. For now, take another look at the remaining books and make a pitch for the ones you appreciate and tell us what concerns you about the others.

And, I as I asked in my last post, let’s agree not to scrounge for specific votes on social media. We want a lot of votes, but we want folks who are educated voters, not just an illustrator’s college roommate’s BFFs from Facebook.

If we talk here, in the comments, we can approximate the begging  lobbying that happens around the Caldecott table. It’s a lot more fun if we hear from you.

Here are the nine books that will move on to a second ballot:

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FIRST,  the clarification. Over the past few days I have read or heard the phrase “list of Caldecott contenders” more times that I care to admit. Often people are referring to our puny list as THE list of Caldecott contenders. ANY picture book published in these here United States by a citizen or resident of  the USA is a contender. Period. Out little list is our little list. If you drag your eyeballs to September you can see how we wrestled the hundreds and hundreds of books down to a manageable few. We looked at reviews and the books themselves. We considered what you had to say. We tried to have different media represented. Lolly and I threw in a few titles that few had starred but we thought would be fun to talk about. We added a few more as more books were published and reviewed. We hoped we would stir a few of you up.

That’s it. THERE IS NO LIST ANYWHERE OF THE CONTENDERS except in the hot little computers of the Real Committee. At this point, that list could be very very long (15 X 7 nominations=105) if there are no overlaps (OF COURSE THERE ARE OVERLAPS!)  or very short if every list was exactly the same. (AGAIN: NO!) They have the list and they alone. We are just having fun trying to figure out what they might be considering. Believe me, we will never know what they are thinking until the Monday announcements and then we will only know what is honored. Those other books? Even the ones which almost won an honor sticker? Nope, we will never know.

SECOND, the plea. Please, when you are voting, just vote one time. While we love social media and we encourage lots of voting, let’s not have anyone rustling up votes from uninterested friends and neighbors. Just vote your heart. It has come to our attention that there has been a little social media vote grabbing and, while that might work on American Idol, we aren’t really about that. We just want to know what our readership really thinks about the books, so, except for encouraging your book-loving friends to read the books and vote, let’s not have any stuffing of the ballot. It skews the results and takes away from the fun.

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Asim and Collier tell the inspiring story of a true American hero who was born into slavery and had a burning desire to read. Of course, teaching a slave to read was forbidden, but Booker’s desire was insatiable. We follow him into freedom, to the salt furnaces and coal mines of West Virginia, and on the long road to Hampton Institute, 500 miles away, with just coins in his pocket and a big dream.

Collier’s illustrations extend Asim’s lyrical text and capture the sacrifice that Washington had to make in his dedication to learning to read and then to studying in college. We see him, still enslaved, dreaming by a tree and then, later, from the same perspective, as an older person, arms outstretched in happiness at finally reaching Hampton.

Here are some elements of the illustrations that I find distinguished:

1. The changing perspectives that allow the reader to feel Washington’s emotions.

2. His shirt, which is a map

3. The light bubbles that float in and out of the spreads. According to the Illustrator’s note, they are symbolic of Washington’s quest for and acquisition for learning.

4. Booker’s face in the window of the school for white kids (and the really BIG bubbles behind him).

5. The font, which has a neat, handwritten feel to it. I also like the sketches added to the text boxes.

6. The bird flying out the window when Booker gets the book from his mother, pulling him away to learning. He quietly repeats this motif with torn paper on a number of pages.

7. When his older neighbors give him money, the illustration is filled with trees that have faces and hands on them, reminding the reader of the sacrifices of the ancestors.

8. His use of the color blue to set the mood–look at that page when he gets to Richmond. He looks nearly destroyed–his young hands look like the hands of a grandfather.

9. And finally, the lightly-written cursive words on Washington’s face on the cover. It took my old lady eyes a little bit of time to read them, but they are the words of his most famous speech, called “Cast down your buckets where you are.” When I found a link to the audio of the speech, I don’t mind admitting that I teared up, more than a little.

Like Dave the Potter, this heartfelt story of the love of words and learning improves with each reading. The emotions come through and the story, for children who might take their schooling for granted, resonates louder with repeated readings.  Whatever happens with this one, I am happy to have a new and more nuanced view of Booker T. Washington for today’s children. Now, go and read that speech and find this book!

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