The winner of the 2013 Calling Caldecott mock vote
is Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen.

The two honor books are
Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Z Is for Moose by Kelly Bingham, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky

Though the first place numbers were decisive on this ballot, there would still be another vote on the real committee. According to the rules, the winning book has to receive more than half the first place votes and with 267 voters, the winner would have to garner 134 first place votes. However, we make our own rules (and we don’t have the option of locking everyone in a room until they get to that magic halfway point plus one).

Later in the day, we will write about honor books and how they are chosen. (Hint: the rules get a little fuzzy here.)

In the interest of transparency, here are the totals:

Over the next few days we will be talking about mourning the loss of beloved titles, review how honor book selection works, and hear what Robin has been up to at ALA. After the actual awards are announced, we will weigh in on the committee’s choices, find out what it’s like watching the returns from the Horn Book office, and get a report from Robin about being there for the big announcement in Seattle.

For those of you who will not be at ALA Midwinter, you can watch the award press conference here, at least until it crashes due to traffic overload! It looks as if they have set up this webcast page to include the Twitter feed in a sidebar. Or you might prefer to follow the Facebook page updates. All this is supposed to begin Monday, January 28 at 8 a.m. PT, which would be 9 a.m. for MT, 10 a.m. for CT, and 11 a.m. for east coasters.

For now, we would love to know your reactions to the latest vote. What surprised you? How did you feel when you saw the results of each ballot?

P.S. We had a problem on the blog last night and most of the comments left on the Mock Caldecott process post seem to have disappeared for good. We think we have copied and pasted all of the lost comments from our e-mail notifications, but if you don’t see yours there now, we encourage you to go back and try to recreate what you said.

The post Extra Yarn wins 2013 Calling Caldecott vote appeared first on The Horn Book.

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.

The post Mocking the Caldecott appeared first on The Horn Book.

As promised, here is a link to the second and final ballot. We hope you’ll keep discussing these books here and on our previous post where you can see the complete results of the first ballot, including just how many first, second, and third place votes each book received. We’ll leave the polls open until Friday morning at 9 a.m. and post the final results Friday at noon.

The nine books on this ballot are
And Then It’s Spring by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Erin E. Stead
Baby Bear Sees Blue by Ashley Wolff
Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Adam Rex
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen
Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
A Home for Bird by Phillip C. Stead
This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen
Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole
Z is for Moose by Kelly Bingham, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky

On a real Caldecott Committee, we would keep voting until one book got more than 50% of the first choice votes. Once that happened, the committee would decide how many honor books to choose and perhaps vote one more time to see which of the runners up get to be honors. Of course, we can’t be QUITE that authentic here because there are so many more people involved and we want to finish our Mock this week. So on Friday morning Robin and I will look at the results of the next vote, give the win to the book with the most first place choices, and make a decision about honor books based on the spread of votes for runners up.

Now, everyone — discuss and VOTE!

The post Calling Caldecott 2013 final ballot is now OPEN appeared first on The Horn Book.

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:

The post Calling Caldecott 2013 ballot #1 results appeared first on The Horn Book.

Here’s a link to the Calling Caldecott Ballot #1. Note that you will vote for your first, second, and third choices, just like the real committee. The polls will close at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning (Wednesday, January 22) and we will aim to post the results at noon.

Tallying actual Caldecott votes is a tricky business. Here’s what the handbook says about counting votes and determining the winner:

Balloting:

When there is consensus that all the books on the discussion list are fully discussed, the committee proceeds to a selection ballot. Certain procedures apply:

• Committee members list first, second, and third place votes for the award on a selection ballot.
• In tabulating ballot results, the tellers assign four points to each first place vote, three points to each second place vote, and two points to each third place vote.
• There is a formula to determine the winner. A book must receive at least 8 first choices at four points per vote for a total of at least 32 points, and it must have an 8 point lead over the book receiving the next highest number of points.

Tally

Once balloting is complete, the tellers tabulate the results. The tabulations are double-checked, and the Chair reads the results aloud to the committee. Depending on the results, certain steps are taken:

• If there is a winner, the committee proceeds to considering whether or not to select honor books.
• If the first ballot does not produce a winner, the committee follows procedures for re-balloting.

Obviously, we can’t tally our votes exactly like the real committee. For one thing, the ratios would be off since there will a lot more than 15 people voting! But we wanted to give you an idea of how this would work if you WERE voting on the committee.

In the interest of expediting our results, we will go to a second ballot and stop there. Robin gets to do the math again this year and then she and I will make some executive decisions about how many honor books to choose. More about THAT tomorrow!

Calling Caldecott Ballot #1 book list:
Abe Lincoln’s Dream by Lane Smith
And Then It’s Spring by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Erin E. Stead
Baby Bear Sees Blue by Ashley Wolff
Bear has a Story to Tell by Phillip C. Stead, illustrated by Erin E. Stead
Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Adam Rex
Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by E. B. Lewis
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen
Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington by Jabari Asim, illustrated by Bryan Collier
Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems
Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Hello, Hello by Matt Cordell
A Home for Bird by Phillip C. Stead
I Have a Dream by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Island: A Story of the Galapagos by Jason Chin
Life in the Ocean: The Story of Oceanographer Sylvia Earle by Claire A. Nivola
Little Dog Lost: The True Story of a Brave Dog Named Baltic by Monica Carnesi
Machines Go to Work in the City by William Low
Mom, It’s My First Day of Kindergarten! by Hyewon Yum
Mousterpiece by Jane Breskin Zalben
The Obstinate Pen by Frank W. Dormer
Ocean Sunlight: How Tiny Plants Feed the Seasby Penny Chisholm and Molly Bang, illustrated by Molly Bang
Step Gently Out by Helen Frost, photographs by Rick Lieder
This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen
Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole
Z is for Moose by Kelly Bingham, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky

The post Time to VOTE! 2013 Mock Caldecott polls are open appeared first on The Horn Book.

On the real committee, once the ballot is decided there is more discussion before voting, so we’d like to hear lots of comments. Lurkers, it’s time to be heard! Be as specific and as persuasive as you can. Who knows, you just might bring some undecided voters into your camp.

We will post a link to the actual voting mechanism at 9 a.m. Tuesday morning and the poll will stay open until 9 a.m. Wednesday. Robin will tally the votes and we’ll let you know the results later on Wednesday, aiming for noon. It seems like a mathematical certainty that we will need a second ballot, and that will go up Thursday morning at 9, closing Friday morning. The goal is to announce a definitive winner and honor books at noon Friday.

(One more thing. In case you were otherwise occupied over the weekend, do check out our last three posts on I Have a Dream, Abe Lincoln’s Dream, and Fifty Cents and a Dream.)

AND NOW, here is THE LIST.

Abe Lincoln’s Dream by Lane Smith
And Then It’s Spring by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Erin E. Stead
Baby Bear Sees Blue by Ashley Wolff
Bear has a Story to Tell by Phillip C. Stead, illustrated by Erin E. Stead
Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Adam Rex
Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by E. B. Lewis
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen
Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington by Jabari Asim, illustrated by Bryan Collier
Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems
Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Hello, Hello by Matt Cordell
A Home for Bird by Phillip C. Stead
I Have a Dream by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Island: A Story of the Galapagos by Jason Chin
Life in the Ocean: The Story of Oceanographer Sylvia Earle by Claire A. Nivola
Little Dog Lost: The True Story of a Brave Dog Named Baltic by Monica Carnesi
Machines Go to Work in the City by William Low
Mom, It’s My First Day of Kindergarten! by Hyewon Yum
Mousterpiece by Jane Breskin Zalben
The Obstinate Pen by Frank W. Dormer
Ocean Sunlight: How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas by Penny Chisholm and Molly Bang, illustrated by Molly Bang
Step Gently Out by Helen Frost, photographs by Rick Lieder
This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen
Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole
Z is for Moose by Kelly Bingham, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky

On your mark, get set, DISCUSS!

The post Calling Caldecott 2013 ballot list appeared first on The Horn Book.

Comment from s.j. on “Are you in mourning?“:

For those who did mock Caldecotts with students, I would love some more information and tips on doing one for next year! I have some mixed-grade classes (1, 2, & 3) and I think this might be a great project to do with them.

Especially: How do you pick the books for their consideration? How many? Ideally at least one of the winner/honors would be in the pile we were using — it would be sort of a buzz kill for the kids if the winner/honors were ones that we weren’t even looking at!
Discussions or activities — book-specific or not, also generally relating to Caldecott and the art of illustration.
Any other tips …
Thanks!

So how about it? Would you all be willing to share your process with all of us blog readers? I would guess timing, preparation, and book selection are key. And if you work with kids, tell us what ages/grades, and how much information you present to the group, whether you simplify anything, etc.

The post Mock Caldecott DIY appeared first on The Horn Book.

The winner of the 2012 Calling Caldecott mock vote is Me…Jane by Patrick McDonnell!

The four honor books are
Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet
Blackout by John Rocco
Grandpa Green by Lane Smith
I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen

Though the first place numbers were decisive on this ballot, there would still be another vote on the real committee between Me…Jane and Grandpa Green. According to the rules, the winning book has to receive more than half the first place votes and with 297 or so voters, the winner would have to garner 149 first place votes. However, we make our own rules!

In the interest of transparency, here are the totals:

In the next day or two, we will be back to talk about how honor books are selected, interesting things about the math of the vote, watching the returns, and mourning the loss of beloved titles. And, of course, we will return next week to see if we had a lick of luck in our predictions. For those of you who will not be in Dallas on Monday, you can watch the award press conference here, at least until it crashes due to traffic overload! If and when that happens, you might find the Twitter feed more useful. All this is supposed to begin at 7:45 a.m. MT, which would be 8:45 for east coasters, 5:45 for west coasters, etc.

For now, we would love to know your reactions to the latest vote. What surprised you? How did you feel when you saw the results of each ballot?

The post Me…Jane wins Calling Caldecott vote appeared first on The Horn Book.

Aaaaand they’re off! Here is a link to the second and final ballot. We’ll leave the polls on this one open until Thursday morning and aim to post the final results Thursday noon. If you missed the results of the first ballot, they are here.

Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet
Blackout by John Rocco
Grandpa Green by Lane Smith
I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen
Me…Jane by Patrick McDonnell

On a real Caldecott Committee, we would keep voting until one book got more than 50% of the first choice votes. Once that happened, the committee would decide how many honor books to choose and perhaps vote one more time to see which of the runners up get to be honors. Of course, we can’t be QUITE that authentic here because there are so many more people involved and we want to finish our Mock this week. So Robin and I will look at the results of the next vote, give the win to the book with the most first place choices, and make a decision about honor books based on the spread of votes for runners up.

I want to thank to Laura Girmscheid at Media Source in NY for making the ballots look pretty and do what we want them to.

Now everyone VOTE — and tell all your friends and co-workers, too!

The post Calling Caldecott final ballot is OPEN appeared first on The Horn Book.

Lolly and I had a face-to-face (really screen-to-screen) chat about how to decide where to go from here. It’s clear that FIVE  titles have risen to the top. Since the vote is weighted, it’s important to look at all the votes for each title and where the votes were cast. Go on, look at the dandy Lolly-made chart below.

Every book got at least one first place vote.  That surprised me. There were other surprises too–some books (Where’s Walrus, for example) garnered a LOT of third place votes, but not a lot of second places. On the real committee, if there is not a clear winner in the first ballot, much discussion will ensue. Farewells would be made to the books that did not have enough support to continue. (For me, saying “goodbye” to Neville is very sad.)

And all those votes would now be up for grabs.

We had 221 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. Thursday as originally planned. For now, take another look at the remaining books and make a pitch for the ones you really, really love appreciate and tell us what concerns you about the others. It’s a lot more fun if we hear from you.

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

Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet
Blackout by John Rocco
Grandpa Green by Lane Smith
I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen
Me…Jane by Patrick McDonnell

On your mark, get set, COMMENT!

The post Calling Caldecott ballot #1 results appeared first on The Horn Book.