Chigusa

I actually peefrr the top right, probably because it does look like a school book from the 1970s! It is intriguing, with all those different types of map. I like the other two but the picture of the man in the mac is a bit old-fashioned - it would be better if the person did not look so 1950s (putting even the 1970s textbook to shame!). Maybe it could even be a woman.I do think that all three are a bit "fussy", though, I think they could come up with something a bit cleaner and more modern in design. But - they are all nice, I am just nitpicking.

Posted : Apr 11, 2013 10:36

Sarah N

Our 2nd graders participate in a Mock Caldecott each year and while I can't help but pick my own favorites, it is always so interesting to see the stories through their eyes. They often see things that I don't see or interpret a book's meaning in a way that had not previously occurred to me. The second graders made their individual selections on Friday and I used those choices to create a final top ten (we have been revising our top ten each week since the unit began). We then used this list to rank our top three this morning (before the announcement) and ended up with a medalist and three honors. Winner: A Home For Bird Honors: The Sandman, Big Mean Mike, and Island, A Story of the Galapagos All four classrooms had different winners which was so interesting to see the differences in the opinions and interests of the classes. A Home for Bird was my favorite all along and I tried hard not to swing any votes its direction, but I almost wonder if I read it aloud with more passion due to my love of the book! :) We watched the awards this morning and cheered for all of the winners. Luckily, we had read all 6 that were recognized and although none of our picks were chosen, we were thrilled with the outcome.

Posted : Jan 28, 2013 09:12

Lynn Van Auken

I'm the librarian in a K - 8 school and conduct a Mock Caldecott with our 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. I used to be able to include the 6th graders, too, until the schedule and teachers changed. :- ( And I just haven't yet been able to convince the 7th & 8th grade LA teachers to carve some time into their curriculums for picture books in January, but I will never tire of sending the invitation! I introduce the award to our 3rd graders, and work on enhancing their understanding each subsequent year. One of the joys of this unit is to see how much studetnts' appreciation for the award and picture book art grows through the years. This year, I had a collection of thirty 2012 picture books to consider. I don't "weed" books from consideration because seeing the range of artwork helps kids understand the differences and clarify the difference between a favorite book or author and a book with distinguished artwork. I divide the classes and books into three groups, and each week for three weeks, my third and fourth graders read and evaluate one set of books using a 1 to 3 star rating scale. My 5th graders no longer come to regularly scheduled library classes, so their teacher scheduled them in for an hour in which they moved through all three sets. Not ideal - but better than nothing! After all the kids have seen and rated all the books, I simply tally the 3-Star ratings to determine our "School Winners." It's not much like the process for the actual award, but the kids get excited about the voting - "Can we announce our winners at Community Meeting?" - and with that many kids participating - around 125 - discussing a short list really isn't feasible. Although, this year there was a short list clearly evident: of the 30 books in the collection, 15 books garnered the majority of the 3-star votes in all three grades. The run-away winner of our Mock Caldecott at the Oak Bluffs School this year was The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Joyce's Man in the Moon was an Honor book last year, and the kids are standing by his artwork! (This will be the generation of children that grow up to award digital art as a matter-of-course, don't you think?) The stand-alone 2nd place book is Green. And firmly holding third: Little Lost Tiger, by Jonathan London and Ilya Spirin. To conclude our unit, we read aloud both the school winners and the real winners and I create a display of all the library books by the winning artists. That way, we can appreciate not only this year's books but the body of work by the honored artists.

Posted : Jan 27, 2013 02:34

Francesca Mellin

My 3rd graders voted on Friday and I have a tie - first time ever - for first place between Z is for Moose and Green, so I quickly arranged for a run-off voting time on Monday morning. The other three books we examined were Extra Yarn (which came in third), Baby Bear Sees Blue, and And Then It's Spring. We start in November, using kid-friendly language to understand the criteria. The students record their observations in a booklet and have an opportunity to recommend books to put forward for examination. After we have declared a winner, we have a "medal ceremony" to put a gold seal and a commemorative label inside the book. I've loved seeing all the other great ideas posted here; can't wait to try some of them next year!

Posted : Jan 26, 2013 10:29

Bill Wright

Robin...what about your kids?? Did your results get eaten by the Angry Birds or internet zombies or whatever took out the first versions of the comments?

Posted : Jan 26, 2013 01:09

Bill Wright

My 3rd graders voted today for their Caldecott picks: MEDAL—Chloe and the Lion HONORS—Extra Yarn, Green, I Have a Dream, Ocean Sunlight, and Unspoken. Surprisingly, we were able to get a winner on the first ballot, but just...Chloe got the minimum 12 first place votes we needed on our 22-member committee. The Honors were a bit harder...since the mean old committee chairman (me) wouldn't let more than 5 honor books, we finally ended up going back to the voting results to take This Is Not My Hat out...it was the only one of the six not to have gotten any first place votes! We start in mid-November with a journal entry answering the question of "What makes you go "wow" about a picture book?" The answers become a list that then introduces the idea of criteria. We then look at the real criteria, with the kids raising their hands for every word they don't fully know the meaning of (quite a few...who wrote those things anyway?), and then we attack the dictionaries. Once we've found all the definitions, we can do a "translation" of the criteria. Meanwhile, I've been scouring the internet and my librarian friends to come up with a milk crate full of books...this year we started with 27! We talk a bit about how to look at a book for Caldecott, look at some previous medal and honor winners, and then start looking at the contenders. At first, the kids are fast and not very discerning, but after a bit of time and hearing some of the observations and questions that some of the more eagle eyed kids and I make, they slow down and really get into the process. At first, I have them make notes, but then around the middle of December, I say no more notes...just read and be familiar with as many of the books as possible. Right before the holiday vacation, I asked the kids for their list of five books that needed to be included in the discussions, any order. This first time having to make in-or-out choices was hard for some of the kids, and it was amazing for me to hear their thinking about their choices! Any books not getting at least 2 votes were struck from the list, so we ended up discussion 20 books. The discussions involve taking each book in turn and letting anyone who wants to speak either for or against it (or both) with me sometimes playing devil's advocate, or asking them to clarify their thinking, or adding things I've noticed or have gleaned from discussions here and elsewhere online. Once we're done with all the discussions, we vote! Over the years, we've chosen the same winner as the real committee twice, and had some real winners as honors and vice versa several times as well. Now we wait to see what Monday brings!

Posted : Jan 26, 2013 01:08

Eric

Over the past week we've been rereading all the caldecott books in preparation for today's mock. We reread Green, The Quiet Place, One Cool Friend, Z is for Moose, Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs, Extra Yarn, This is Not My Hat, Hello, Hello, And Then it's Spring, Baby Bear Sees Blue and Oh No! So instead of doing some the balloting and re-ballotting that I've always done for these mocksI figured I could turn it into a writing activity. Each of my first graders simply wrote about which book they think should win and why......About five minutes into writing one of my students asks "Wasn't LET'S GO FOR A DRIVE a new book in 2012?" When I told them it was indeed published this year about half the class began furiously erasing their writing to start anew. I wasn't surprised to find Let's Go for a Drive the run away winner of my first grade class's mock caldecott....I would love to have known what might have won instead had that student not reminded his classmates about one of the eligible piggie and elephant books. Anyway the rest of the results had second in voting was This is Not My Hat and third was Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs......(yes we have a serious Willems addiction and are not seeking treatment) with the remaining votes going to Oh No and Extra Yarn.

Posted : Jan 25, 2013 08:03

Robin Smith

Also, folks from the CCBC listserv are posting their Mock Caldecotts and I loved this list, which has just one of the books from our list on it (Green) The Indian Community School 3rd and 4th graders participated in a Mock Caldecott election. Our results were as follows: Mock Caldecott Medal-Magritte's Marvelous Hat-written and illustrated by D.B. Johnson Mock Caldecott Honor-Last Laughs written by J. Patrick Lewis & Jane Yolen illustrated by Jeffrey Stewart Timmins Mock Caldecott Honor-Green written and illustrated by Laura Vaccaro Seeger The students enjoyed the process, starting with 15 books and narrowing it down to 8.

Posted : Jan 25, 2013 03:33

Robin Smith

From Cheryl In Rhode Island, 16 school librarians and public librarians gathered for our mock Caldecott on January 16th. I put together a list of nominees (many of them from the titles discussed here, and other books with excellent reviews) and posted the list on our agency's website. Librarians have about a month to review the books independently. When we gather for our mock Caldecott, the first 30 minutes are spent looking over the books, which gives people the chance to review books they may not have been able to get at their libraries. I asked for volunteers to present books (ahead of the meeting), and about approximately half of our books were claimed. The presenters shared what they appreciated and their concerns. We used the Whole Book Approach as our model, starting with the book orientation, jacket, cover, title page, artistic medium etc. Then, others around the table chimed in with their comments/concerns. After the presentation and discussion, we voted whether or not to keep the book on our final voting list. When we were done with the presentations (I briefly presented the books w/o champions), we had 8 books on our final voting list: Extra Yarn, Z is for Moose, Little Dog Lost, Unspoken, Oh, No!, This is Not My Hat, Bear Has a Story to Tell, and Baby Bear Sees Blue. On our 2nd ballot, we had our winners: Winner: Bear Has a Story to Tell Honors: Z is for Moose and This is Not My Hat (I was personally rooting for Little Dog Lost, which I came to truly appreciate while preparing my presentation for it ... I first looked at it when it came up for discussion here, so thank you for bringing this book to my attention!). To see all of the books we considered: http://www.olis.ri.gov/services/children/caldecott2013final.pdf Thank you for all of your work putting Calling Caldecott together. It's been great fun following along all Fall.

Posted : Jan 25, 2013 03:29

Lolly Robinson

Oh, no! Something happened to all the great comments we had here. If you can, please come back and tell us again about your Mocks.

Posted : Jan 25, 2013 01:24

Mary Ann Scheuer

We have had a wonderful time talking about what books the Caldecott Committee might be discussing this year. I've run a Mock Caldecott unit with our 2nd graders, and it's been a fantastic opportunity to have them really delve into their thinking about how pictures add to a story. Calling Caldecott has been a wonderful resource for me, as I've searched for books to include in this unit. Thank you so much for your thoughtful posts. Here are the roundups I did, sharing my student's thoughts: http://greatkidbooks.blogspot.com/search/label/mock%20Caldecott

Posted : Jan 25, 2013 05:27