Dear Patient Readers,

Martha and I have come up with a plan for the next few months of your our lives. It involves a lot of words like gutter, back matter, typeface, design, saturated, and stylized. Some of those words we actually understand. We have mapped out our time, knowing that Lolly will jump in as soon as she can to help us out. (I bet Lolly will appear in the comments when she has the energy for whipping us into shape.)

Here is how it's going to go down: Martha and I will be trying a mixture of old and new this year. Much of the time we will talk about individual books through the focus of the terms and criteria we have tattooed on our brains. Sometimes we will talk about books we really love. Sometimes, well, we will disagree with the zeitgeist. Once or twice we may even disagree with each other. Every so often, we will write about Other Things that we want to talk about, just because.

Here are the books we are planning to talk about as of this very moment. We may not get to them all; we may add books that we see later in the year. We might compare some books to others. Who knows? The Real Committee is allowed to talk about books published this year, even comparing one to another. We might do that, too.

Stay tuned and return often, as we plan to post frequently. We have a lot to say.

Boring, oft-repeated disclaimer: This is our list. This is not the Caldecott committee's list. If your favorite is not here, feel free to say, "I told you so!" later in January. 

So, without further ado, here is our list. Come back on Monday to see which book we discuss first. You can be sure of only two things: 1. We will NOT go in alphabetical order and 2. We will talk about Little Santa in December.

Bluebird

Bully

Bunnies on Ice

Crankenstein

Daisy Gets Lost

The Dark

The Day the Crayons Quit

Flora and the Flamingo

Frog Song

Grandma and the Great Gourd

Inside Outside

Journey

Little Santa

Locomotive

The Matchbox Diary

The Mighty Lalouche

Mr. Tiger Goes Wild

Mr. Wuffles!

My Name Is Ruby

Nino Wrestles the World

Odd Duck

On a Beam of Light

Papa’s Mechanical Fish

Tortoise & the Hare

Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great

Water in the Park

 

Plus, multiple titles illustrated by:

Brian Pinkney

Jonathan Bean

Melissa Sweet

Sergio Ruzzier