Could an original board book ever win a Caldecott? This blog has contemplated this question, most notably in 2018 (“All A-Board: Why the Hell Hasn't a Board Book Won the Caldecott!?”) when Elisa Gall and Jonathan Hunt lamented that Llamaphones by French resident Janik Coat was not eligible and wondered if Steve Light’s Black Bird Yellow Sun could possibly take home a medal to adorn its small cover. Now we’re here to ponder: Could Jon Klassen’s trio of board books in the Your Places series (Your Farm, Your Forest, and Your Island) be a Caldecott winner? If any of them won, this would be one of the first times the Committee has publicly considered the full age range of the eligible books, 0–14 years. At least one honor book has gone up to age fourteen (This One Summer illustrated by Jillian Tamaki and written by Mariko Tamaki), but I don’t think anything has skewed so young!   

Many Caldecott winners have been turned into board books after they’ve won, including Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes, A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka, My Friend Rabbit by Eric Rohmann, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, and The House in Night illustrated by Beth Krommes and written by Susan Marie Swanson. Jon Klassen’s 2013 winner, This Is Not My Hat, was turned into a board book, but I would argue that some of the delightfully subversive visual storytelling may go over the heads of core board-book readers. If one of these new offerings by Klassen wins, it would be a game-changer for the board book market.  

Looking at the books themselves, I find it hard to pick one of the titles as a standout. It’s like asking a parent of triplets to pick a favorite. They are all gems. While the same structure is used for all three, they don’t feel repetitive. If you have all three books, try reading them all simultaneously (their trim size is small enough to let you spread your books out on your desk). Their masterful composition shines through like the sun shines on the very first page of each book. There is surprise and whimsy with every page-turn, from “a forest ghost” to “a magic fire.” But how could you choose just one to win the medal? The books beg to be read and packaged together. (The box set is coming in October.) 

These books are all about placement on the spare pages. Trees, rocks, a river, a boat, a bird, and buildings move about the page as if they’e being played with and manipulated by a small child. Each thing that is introduced enters on the right and moves over to the left as new things come on the scene. And when the stage is set, all the things that were introduced are now on the lefthand side with only the words on the right to balance out the layout. Board book is the perfect format for these titles. The wide trim size (when opened) allows readers to focus on each place or thing introduced, and the narrow page height makes this world feel reader-created. A larger hardcover picture book would not feel as intimate.  

The placement of eyes on each and every thing is brilliant. Babies are hard-wired to read faces from birth, and young children tend to anthropomorphize their world. The eyes give each of these places or things a droll personality. The windows of “your barn” and “your cabin” resemble mouths, making them look eternally surprised. I love that some of the items, like the stool, the magic fire, one of the rocks, and each fence post only have enough room for one eye.  

My favorite moment is when the ghost appears in Your Forest; the things previously introduced give this apparition the side-eye, which you can animate via a rapid page-turn. The books read like lullabies. The ending, when all the eyes close and the light switches from an orangey sunset to a blue-green night sky, is perfect for the very young. And the moon and the ghost on the last spread with eyes wide open are a reminder to children that someone will be watching over this world while they sleep through the night.  

Will the Caldecott Committee be able to choose just one of these books and make it the very first original board-book winner, with the seal taking up almost all of the cover? While I would love to see it, the simplicity of these books may belie their “...eminence and distinction” and their “significant achievement” to quote the Caldecott criteria. Is it challenging for board books, because of the necessity of their simplicity, to compete with their more sophisticated picture book cousins? This is one of the reasons that board books now have an award of their own in the Margaret Wise Brown Board Book Award (see more about the award in the March/April 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine).  

While the books may look simple, they are deceptively so. Klassen has figured out a way to make simple and engaging stories for an audience, which he described, in a recent New York Times essay about his process, as readers who can’t read, can’t talk, and don't care about plots or characters. I would disagree slightly with this. While babies don’t experience books the same way older children do, they are building a foundation for understanding plot, character, and language. A game of peek-a-boo or a page-turn is plot distilled down to its essence: What happens next? Characters, at their core, are people (or even things) that we identify with and make our own. Language and stories give us the ability to name and try to understand our world. Klassen does all of these things for his adorably egocentric readers to create books that demonstrate “Excellence of presentation in recognition of a child audience” as the Caldecott criteria requires. 

So do you think Klassen could join the ranks of multiple Caldecott-winning artists with these books? And which title, whether it’s Your Farm, Your Forest, or Your Island, is a little more excellent, a little more distinguished, or a little more eminent? Is it even possible to pick one? I’d love to know your thoughts!

[Read The Horn Book Magazine review of Your Farm, Your Forest, and Your Island]