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...
In this brightly colored concept book, Brendan Wenzel shows the sun from dawn to dusk as it makes its way across the sky. During its journey, an array of flora and fauna — bees, a bear, flowers, a pair of foxes, crops in the field, birds, and others — asks...
Juana Martinez-Neal's debut picture book, Alma and How She Got Her Name, which she both wrote and illustrated, earned her a 2019 Caldecott Honor. In A Gift of Dust: How Saharan Plumes Feed the Planet, she continues to explore shapes and textures, bringing the Saharan dust plume of Martha Brockenbrough's text...
Here’s a book so beautiful you wish you could have the original art gracing your living room walls. I at least have the book perched atop a bookcase in a well-lit room. And it reads beautifully, too. Kwame Alexander’s lyrical free verse begs to be read aloud, which he did...
Our first post about an eligible 2025 book is coming up on Thursday, but before we focus on the 2026 awards, let’s take a moment to appreciate Rebecca Lee Kunz, winner of the 2025 Caldecott Award for Chooch Helped, written by Andrea L. Rogers, published by Levine Querido. This was...
As we’ve covered amply through the years, the Caldecott Medal “shall be awarded annually to the artist of the most distinguished picture book for children published by an American publisher in the United States in English.” If you’re fuzzy on Caldecott criteria, I recommend Julie Hakim Azzam’s “A Refresher on...
Today we are pleased to present our tentative list (subject to change!) of eligible 2025 books that we hope to cover on Calling Caldecott this season. Remember, to be Caldecott eligible, a book must be published in the U.S. in 2025 and the illustrator must either be a U.S. citizen...
Summer is coming to an end, pumpkin spice is in the air (like it or hate it), and Labor Day is in our rearview mirrors. That means it’s time to welcome everyone back to Calling Caldecott, the Horn Book blog devoted to discussing a year’s worth of Caldecott-eligible books through...
Robin Smith was the best teacher I ever knew. A nationally known writer and children’s book committee member, she was committed to books as the heart of her teaching. She read hundreds of picture books every year in her second-grade classroom and always had a novel going, too — The...