The Horn Book’s Calling Caldecott and School Library Journal’s Heavy Medal are busily winding up their coverage of the 2013 Caldecott and Newbery contenders, easily the most-discussed book prizes in the country: take a bow, ALSC! If they are at all like me, those bloggers are also nervously worrying about completely missing the mark, that it will be one of those years when either or both the award committees will surprise every soothsayer and handicapper in the field by pulling a rabbit out of a hat, as the 2003 Caldecott committee did with My Friend Rabbit. It’s one thing to disagree with a committee’s choice (if no one is outraged with any given prizewinner, it’s not a prize worth winning); it’s another to have simply overlooked it. Perhaps this is why we look so hard in the first place, and thank goodness for that.



Roger Sutton
Editor in Chief

From the January 2014 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.