As we here at Calling Caldecott always like to do at this time of year — right before the big awards announcement — we take a moment to thank our guest bloggers, all the talented and observant writers who visited Calling Caldecott this year to delve into a tall stack of impressive picture books. We appreciate their eagle-eye look at the books and the perspectives they provide. We couldn't do this blog without them. We are immensely grateful for their contributions. Thank you to Autumn Allen, Luisana Duarte Armendáriz, Thom Barthelmess, Betsy Bird, Alissa Browning-Couch, Eric Carpenter, Alec Chunn, Rebekah Dutkiewicz, Shoshana Flax, Amanda Foulk, Elisa Gall, Elissa Gershowitz, Monique Harris, Jonathan Hunt, Marjorie Ingall, Alia Jones, Travis Jonker, Allison Grover Khoury, Maeve Visser Knoth, Minh Lê, Niki Marion, Michelle H. Martin, Grace McKinney, Lisa Meidl, Sabrina Montenigro, Rachel Payne, Adrienne Pettinelli, Emily Prabhaker, Julie Roach, Hill Saxton, Dean Schneider, Scot Smith, Christina Soontornvat, Emmie Stuart, Deborah Taylor, Sylvia Vardell, and Brian Wilson. 

And, as always, big thanks to Media Source's Research Manager Laura Girmscheid, who every year creates the poll for our mock vote, makes it possible for us to make sure no one is ballot stuffing, and helps us crunch the numbers. Laura is so generous with her time, and we couldn't put on the mock vote without her. Thank you, Laura!

If you missed the results of that mock vote yesterday, they are here. Thanks to everyone who voted. If mock-voting is not your thing, but you have read along with us for the past five months or so, we thank you for joining us! We remember thanking you last year for sticking with us during a pandemic. Well, ditto for this year! (Let's hope we won't be saying this next year.) Thank you to our readers for being a part of the discussion. 

It's not long now until the Real Commitee makes their choices. What are your plans? If you're a teacher or librarian, you may be planning to watch the video stream with your students on Monday morning. As a reminder, the announcements will be live-streamed starting at 8 a.m. CST. Here is the link to the video stream. We are eager to find out which books will be announced! Could it be one of the books in the photo here? Or a book that wasn't even on our radar? We've been surprised before.

Which books have you crossing your fingers for some Caldecott recognition?