Blogs
Yes, it's time for the second round of Caldecott "nominations"! As you may recall, in November we put out a call for a first round, asking readers to name their top four choices (so far). Now we are back, asking for THREE more titles. Each member of the Real Committee must nominate...
Soon after I was assigned The Shortest Day for Calling Caldecott, I heard author Susan Cooper and illustrator Carson Ellis speak about their collaboration at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. Scrawled in my notes from that day is the sentence, “This isn’t a poem about merry feudal...
A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech That Inspired a Nation is an exemplary nonfiction picture book — as in, it represents the best of its kind. The story it tells — of the crafting of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech at the 1963 March on Washington — is absolutely riveting; and the visual...
In a December 2018 interview at the site Art of the Picture Book, Oge Mora mentions that a quote from her favorite painter Jacob Lawrence — "when the subject is complex, simplicity is the only way to treat it" — inspires her. She praises Lawrence's playful style, as well as the way he created...
As I read Double Bass Blues, I can see and feel the double meaning of the title. Nic is a young Black boy who plays the double bass at his suburban school. Unlike his friends, to get home he must travel across town — and with a double bass on his back....
One of the things I miss most about school librarianship is doing mock Caldecott units with students. There is a lot they can learn about picture books from a close examination of them — they learn about art and design and writing and how both art and design can extend a text...
Fry Bread disappeared from my elementary-school library desk before I had the chance to process it with plastic and barcode stickers. When I then crossed paths with the eager student who had borrowed it, she looked up at me with a smile matching that of the baby on the book’s...
Jason Chin, author and illustrator of such excellent science books as Grand Canyon (2017), Island (2012), Coral Reefs (2011), and Redwoods (2009) has a talent for combining story and nonfiction content. The narratives, illustrations, and nonfiction elements always work together, so much so that his books make great read-alouds and the information, woven into the stories,...
Recently at his blog 100 Scope Notes, Travis Jonker set about calculating the likelihood that a Caldecott winner may repeat his or her win in the future. He’d crunched similar numbers for the Newbery already, but even so, the results surprised him. He wrote: “I didn’t expect the number of repeat winners...
342 articles
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LOG IN
We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing.
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LOG IN
Thank you for visiting.
We’ve noticed you are using a private browser. To continue, please log in or create an account.
