I’m on the 2018 Caldecott Committee this year, and here’s what we like so far…

...Just kidding! I can’t do that. I can’t talk about committee work, or what titles have been suggested, or what books are gaining traction, etc. But I can talk about general things that most picture book people find interesting, much of which is in the Caldecott manual, available online.

As a committee member but also a children’s book reviewer for Kirkus, Horn Book, and BookPage, I can review picture books only for Kirkus, since their reviews are unsigned. For this year, I review novels for the other magazines. Giving away my opinions about picture books online would be too big of a hint at what I might be suggesting or nominating.

We (the members of the Caldecott committee) have received hundreds of books and have been making monthly suggestions to our chair, who compiles an ongoing spreadsheet. There is no limit on the number of suggestions, but I’m pretty parsimonious; there's no sense in suggesting a title unlikely to be nominated. Suggested titles are the ones that merit attention by all of us.

Speaking of which, nominations begin very soon — early October. Suggestions continue, but nominations are where things get more serious. In October, we each make three nominations, backed by written support for each title’s merits, stating why a title is a work of distinction and worthy of discussion. So far, there has been no online discussion, just an accumulation of suggested titles — the books we each read as a common pool of good titles. Though suggestions are anonymous, we do see on the spreadsheet the numbers of suggestions each book is getting, so we get a sense of which titles are gaining support.

Nominations narrow the field, and nominated books are the ones discussed face-to-face when we meet in Denver for 20-plus hours of discussions. We each get two more nominations in October and two final ones in December. That adds up to seven nominations for each of us. With fifteen members on the committee, that could be 105 books to discuss. There will be overlap, so the actual number of nominated books might be more like 60 or so.

When nominations begin, I must nominate seven different titles, but I can nominate titles nominated by other committee members on previous ballots. This is how we see the support (“traction”) some titles are getting prior to our face-to-face deliberations. And this is what keeps the total number of nominations lower.

I have served on other committees, including the Newbery, and the voting process is fascinating. But maybe it’s better that I wait on that. If Jules reminds me, I can give a play-by-play directly from our secret underground chamber in Denver. No, I can’t do that either. But I can jump back in on Calling Caldecott and discuss the process and what can be so interesting about it.

Calling Caldecott is dear to my heart, since my wife, Robin Smith, was a co-founder of the blog. Calling Caldecott season was always so much fun, a wonderful parallel to our teaching and review-writing. When Robin passed away in June, I knew there was no better person than Julie Danielson to continue Robin’s work. I’m looking forward to following the blog…and keeping my mouth shut.

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