Picking honor books is one of the mysterious parts of the whole book committee experience. On the Caldecott committee, the manual is strangely quiet on the question of honor books.

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:

And Then It's Spring	17	41	28	247
Baby Bear Sees Blue	13	16	24	148
Chloe and the Lion	32	17	23	225
Extra Yarn	61	44	38	452
Green	30	43	28	305
A Home for Bird	26	23	15	203
This Is Not My Hat	22	31	38	257
Unspoken	30	18	30	234
Z Is for Moose	36	28	36	300

 

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?