Hello from the Calling Caldecott off-season, and welcome to our version of college basketball's March Madness — a celebration of Horn Book cover art and artists! 

Calling Caldecott prides itself on being a place where lively discussion and celebration of children’s book illustration takes place. The Magazine has a spectacular array of cover art (see our gallery from 2000 through today here), and we're improvising on the standard March Madness brackets to shine a light on cover artists' phenomenal work.

Here's what to do:

Beginning next week, we will invite you to "vote" (via the comments below and/or social media: IG: @thehornbook| X: @HornBook | Facebook.com/TheHornBook) on your favorite Magazine cover from each posted grouping. The six top-vote-getters will face off in two groups of three. Those two winners compete in a head-to-head matchup, and by the end of this very-subjective, not-serious event, six covers will emerge as the “winners” — we use that term very loosely as we really do love them all!

First up are the January/Februray covers, next our March/April covers; and so on. You can do some pre-gaming here.

Why now? 

Maybe you've heard that 2024 is The Horn Book's centennial year. Randolph Caldecott’s Three Jovial Huntsmen (above) graced the cover of The Horn Book Magazine from its founding in 1924 (with occasional divergences: see this week's Horn Book trivia) until a new era began with an original illustration by Maurice Sendak (who better to replace Mr. Caldecott?!) for the November/December 1985 issue. For the next fourteen years, covers by such chidlren's-book-illustration icons as William Steig, Arnold Lobel, Vera B. Williams, David Macaulay, and Barbara Cooney followed, each providing the art for a year's worth of issues.

With the January/February 2000 issue, it was time for another cover evolution: going forward, each issue of the Magazine featured art from a different illustrator. Some covers are original pieces; some are illustrations reprinted from books in a particular issue. 

As you’re looking at the covers, think about which ones really pop, reflect a theme or time of year especially well, interact with the title text in clever ways, and are particularly suited for the cover space. Make your completely subjective choices heard! 

Follow along with our brackets coverage:

• January/February
• March/April
• May/June
• July/August
• September/October
• November/December

A centennial's worth of thanks to Summer Edward, without whose brilliant coding and design acumen — and good-humored tenacity — this would not have been possible.