>Place your bets!

by Roger Sutton
May 29, 2007 | Filed in Articles & Opinion
>The Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards committee is beginning its round of in-person debate tomorrow, and I'll be able to share the names of the winners with you next week. Any guesses? The awards frequently surprise me, as my involvement with the choices ends with selecting the judges and I'm not privy to their discussions. Because the award's year begins on June 1, it straddles the eligibility frames of the calendar year awards such as the Newbery and Caldecott, and can thus both affirm (or not) and predict (or not) what those awards did or will do. Dates aside, the BGHB awards aren't really comparable with the ALA awards, though, because the criteria are markedly different: fiction, nonfiction, and picture books are judged separately (poetry can fall into any and all of these categories); picture books are for both art and text (and illustrator and author); and books originally published in another country and then republished in the States are eligible. Any guesses?

We also had our July/August star meeting today. Those choices will be yours within a couple of days. Let's just say it was lively.
Roger Sutton
Roger Sutton

Editor Emeritus Roger Sutton was editor in chief of The Horn Book, Inc., from 1996-2021. He was previously editor of The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books and a children's and young adult librarian. He received his MA in library science from the University of Chicago in 1982 and a BA from Pitzer College in 1978.

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Anonymous

>Darn. I keep losing my posts. Yes, I agree that one would be hard-pressed to find Caldecott winners that meet the criteria. So why did I post them in the first place? I suppose because people are talking about HUGO for Caldecott, and I still don't think it's a picture book. This is one of the reasons why I so love the BGHB awards, which are for the whole picture book. These days, it can be a challenge to separate design, art, and text.

Posted : Jun 03, 2007 07:35

Roger Sutton

>The Caldecott definition presumes that the pictures are more important than the text (thus the justification for not honoring the author), but what do you do when, in a book like Hugo Cabret, both text and pictures are incomplete without the other? It's not an illustrated book, in which an artist elaborates on images found in the text, and it's not a graphic novel, in which the pictures and the text are, graphically, the same thing. As the audiobook production of Hugo Cabret demonstrated, the book doesn't work without the pictures (new bridging sentences had to be supplied) and while the pictures have plenty of movement and emotion, it's the text that supplies such qualities as the characters' motivations. Do I think the book is primarily "a visual experience"? Yes. Will the pictures tell the story on their own? No. Anyone feel like going back through the roster of Caldecott winners to see how often a "unity of story-line, theme, or concept, developed through the series of pictures of which the book is comprised" actually holds true? Have at it.

Posted : Jun 03, 2007 03:24

Elaine Magliaro

>Roger,

I don't place bets on books of poetry. Unfortunately, they are all too seldom deemed worthy of major children's literary awards.
I can think of a few fine poetry collections and one excellent anthology that have been published in the past year that should be taken into consideration. I hope BG/HB acknowledges one of these books this year.

Posted : Jun 03, 2007 03:25

Anonymous

>Okay, I'll bite, but why are you working on Saturday? Never mind.

Not a picture book. Hmm. Maybe this will lead to more discussion. I think it's not a picture book because it's far too long to provide a unified experience for the child and because it's not the miracle that comes from the integration of art and text. Sure, there are other books in which wordless spreads interact with text/pictures (Wild Things immediately comes to mind) that are still picture books, but to me HUGO is far more of an illustrated story than a picture book.
Here are the Caldecott definitions, which I know you know all too well:
"A 'picture book for children' as distinguished from other books with illustrations, is one that essentially provides the child with a visual experience. A picture book has a collective unity of story-line, theme, or concept, developed through the series of pictures of which the book is comprised." So back to you!

Posted : Jun 02, 2007 05:23

Roger Sutton

>Leaving aside your thoughts on the text, Anon., I'm curious about why you don't think Hugo Cabret is a picture book (mediocre or otherwise). It seems one to me.

Posted : Jun 02, 2007 02:38

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