Some of the most indelible imagery in Big, this year’s Caldecott Medal–winning title by Vashti Harrison, is of breaking free of constraints, as a protagonist who feels trapped “make[s] more space for herself,” emerging into a stunning double gatefold. Big was a BIG deal this year, with additional accolades including Coretta Scott King Author and Illustrator honors and as the first picture book to be a National Book Award for Young People’s Literature finalist. It was the clear winner of this year’s Calling Caldecott mock vote. And most momentously: it makes Vashti Harrison the first Black woman to win the Caldecott Medal in its eighty-six-year history.

Among this year’s winners, we saw themes of authors, characters, and books breaking boundaries, blurring lines, going beyond what’s precedented, making or finding or being afforded more space. In the case of Big, that space was long-deserved and hard-won. See Harrison’s acceptance speech for her reflections on her award, including acknowledgment of the “many visionaries who came before [her], have come after [her], who may have been overlooked or forgotten.” The same is true for Pam Muñoz Ryan, the first Latine creator to be recognized with the ­Children’s Literature Legacy Award. This year’s CSK–Virginia Hamilton Award winner, Christopher Paul Curtis, is no stranger to breaking boundaries: in 2000, he became the first person to win both the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award for Bud, Not Buddy and the first African American man (and only the third Black person at the time) to win the Newbery Medal. As always, we’re thrilled to see these firsts and seconds and thirds, as we are with the progress in diverse representation that they herald. The more space creators and characters from all backgrounds have the chance to take up, in all types of stories, the better.

This year, we saw authors crossing over to new genres or age levels, and awards breaking expectations for the types of books they tend to go to. Like 2009 Newbery winner Neil Gaiman (for The Graveyard Book), this year’s winner, Dave Eggers, is best known for his adult ­writing — or, perhaps, for his work with ­McSweeney’s or the 826 program (see Amanda Uhle’s profile of ­Eggers). But he has also ventured into writing for young people…and is now the Newbery Medalist for his middle-grade novel The Eyes and the Impossible. Canine narrator Johannes’s worldview expands after the arrival of an art exhibit in the park where he lives, and Shawn Harris’s (2022 Caldecott ­honoree for Have You Ever Seen a Flower?) ­illustrations blur lines in another way, inserting Johannes into existing ­landscape paintings. The book itself has a unique publishing story: “released simultaneously as a deluxe wood-bound hardcover from McSweeney’s, and as a no-less-deluxe-but-bound-in-a-­more-traditional-style hardcover from Knopf Books for Young ­Readers,” not to ­mention “an extra deluxe, ­extraordinarily oversized edition” for $150 (per the McSweeney’s website).

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We were happy to see a diverse group of creators receiving Caldecott Honors: Hanna Cha for The Truth About Dragons (written by Julie Leung), Marla Frazee for In Every Life, Molly Mendoza for Jovita Wore Pants: The Story of a Mexican Freedom Fighter (written by Aida Salazar), and ­Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey for There Was a Party for Langston (written by Jason Reynolds). The same is true of the Newbery Honor Books — and it was also exciting to see that all but one prominently featured illustrations: Elf Dog & Owl Head by M. T. Anderson, illustrated by Junyi Wu; Eagle Drums by Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson; The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams by Daniel Nayeri, illustrated by Daniel Miyares; and Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir by Pedro Martín (with the exception being Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow).

In fact, in recent years overall we’ve seen more books with art winning awards for their words (e.g., Matt de la Peña’s 2016 Newbery Medal for Last Stop on Market Street). Two of this year’s three CSK Author Honors went to picture books: Harrison for Big and Carole Boston Weatherford for How Do You Spell Unfair?, illustrated by Frank ­Morrison; the third, Kin: Rooted in Hope, though not a picture book, is also illustrated, by Jeffery Boston Weatherford, and made his mother, Carole, a two-time 2024 CSK honoree. Two of this year’s Pura Belpré Children’s Author honorees are picture books (­Benita y las criaturas nocturnas by Mariana Llanos, illustrated by Cocoretto, and Papá’s Magical Water-Jug Clock by Jesús Trejo, illustrated by Eliza Kinkz). And books all over the award slate, beyond the expected categories, included illustrations, photos, or other types of art.

Not too long ago, it was unexpected for a graphic novel to win one of the Youth Media Awards; Jerry Craft’s New Kid became the first graphic novel to win the Newbery Medal as recently as 2020. But these days it’s almost the norm for a graphic novel or graphic memoir to show up on YMA announcement slides. There were several this year among the awards and honors, most notably Pedro Martín’s funny, bittersweet Mexikid, which won the Pura Belpré Author and Illustrator awards and a Newbery Honor, as well as an Odyssey Honor for its audio edition. Parachute Kids by Betty C. Tang won an APALA Children’s Literature Honor; Courage to Dream: Tales of Hope in the Holocaust by Neal Shusterman, illustrated by Andrés Vera Martínez, was a Sydney Taylor Book Award YA honoree. Meanwhile, Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s graphic memoir Sunshine won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Nonfiction (see “Mind the Gap,” but we’re not bitter!).

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“Let’s hear it for weirdness!” we said in July/August 2022’s “The Year in Words and Pictures—and Stories” after A.S. King won the Margaret A. Edwards Award. Now, let’s hear it for short stories: The Collectors: Stories, edited by King and featuring tales by her and by nine fellow YA authors. The collection, which includes those authors’ interpretations of the theme of collections and collectors — at varying levels of weirdness — became the first anthology to win the Printz Award. And let’s hear it for stories taking up more space than their creators originally expected. In her acceptance speech, Ibi Zoboi shares that the character Nigeria Jones first appeared in a short story within Black Enough, an anthology Zoboi edited; now, Nigeria is the protagonist (and namesake) of a CSK Author Award–winning novel. (Meg Medina’s 2019 Newbery star, from Merci Suárez Changes Gears, also first appeared in a short story in We Need Diverse Books’s Flying Lessons & Other Stories.) And Tracy Mack’s profile of Pam Muñoz Ryan tells us that many of Ryan’s stories began as picture-book manuscripts before growing into novels.

An American Story, written by Kwame Alexander, which garnered a CSK Illustrator Award win for Dare Coulter (honors went to Harrison for Big, the Pumphreys for Langston, and Shannon Wright for Holding Her Own, written by Traci N. Todd, also a Sibert honoree), erases the boundary between two- and three-dimensional space and between past and present. As ­Annisha Jeffries said in her Calling Caldecott post, “Part of what makes Coulter’s illustrations so captivating is the way she brings three-dimensional work into the two-dimensional realm; this amplifies the book’s message about the importance of the past in the present, literally bringing the past to life on the page.”

The past takes up space in the ­present. Which brings us back to another recurring theme: learning from those who came before us. (We noticed lots of appreciation of family members and teachers among this year’s speeches and profiles, for example, and we’re all for it!) This year, we’ve been looking to those who preceded us since Bertha Mahony Miller founded the Horn Book in 1924. See the HB100 tag on our website, and especially our May/June special issue, for a celebration of our centennial as we look back — and see “All About Awards” for thoughts on this issue’s mini-theme and the relationship between the Horn Book and awards over the years. We’ve been privileged to be part of the children’s literature space for a hundred years, and we look forward to welcoming more and more stories and more and more voices into that space.

From the July/August 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine: Special Issue: ALA Awards. For more speeches, profiles, and articles, click the tag ALA 2024.

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