Robin Smith, my wife, co-founded Calling Caldecott, and when she died last year, I knew that each fall would have me wondering which current picture books Robin would love most. The way I decide is to think of Robin’s rocking chair, painted in vivid reds and yellows and greens by Alabama outsider artist Chris Clark and Robin’s second graders. As stated here last year in the first annual Calling Caldecott announcement of the Robin Smith Picture Book Prize (for The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse), “We can imagine her in her classroom rocking chair, her students sitting in front of her on the rug, as she launches into the book.” Robin loved picture books with lively texts complementing the visual experience. She loved the great read-aloud, and she always read with a gleam in her eyes, a big enthusiastic smile, and a dramatic voice. So, I've been thinking about which 2018 picture books Robin would have most wanted to read from her chair.

Of the books I've seen so far, three jump out at me as ones Robin would love. Sophie Blackall’s Hello Lighthouse is a read-aloud treat. Though Blackall’s lighthouse is based on one in Newfoundland, Robin would have connected it to her love of Maine and Little Cranberry Island, which we visited each summer. The portrait orientation of the book and the white lighthouse with the red door, surrounded by various shades of blue sky and ocean, would have first attracted Robin’s eye. The ink-and-watercolor illustrations are standouts, featuring the lighthouse design itself and the human story within.

Robin’s Caldecott year (2010) had A Sick Day for Amos McGee as its winner, and it’s a particular sadness that Robin couldn’t share in my Caldecott experience last year and our winner, Matthew Cordell’s Wolf in the Snow. And such a shame that Robin can’t see Sergio Ruzzier’s Fox + Chick: The Party and Other Stories, dedicated to her. She so loved and championed Ruzzier’s work, and his latest is full of all the skill, humor, and charm that Robin appreciated.

And Robin would have been drawn to Jacqueline Woodson’s The Day You Begin. She would have loved illustrator Rafael López’s cityscapes and classroom scenes. As a teacher, Robin was a master of creating community in the classroom, using Vivian Gussin Paley’s book You Can’t Say You Can’t Play as her guide; kids in her class were not allowed to exclude others from their play. It’s a theme central to Woodson’s book. Another reason Robin would have been drawn to the book is that our own two children felt like outsiders when kids at school talked of vacations in Europe or on Caribbean islands, when they spent theirs at home in their neighborhood, like Angelina and her sister. So, Robin would have related to themes in the text, but she would have seen this as a Caldecott contender for its beautiful, child-friendly art, supported and complemented by that strong text.



Well, Robin isn’t here, but her rocking chair is. Only now I have given it to Emmie Stuart, a young and wonderful friend and librarian here in Nashville (and a fellow Calling Caldecott guest blogger), who has been much inspired by Robin. (Pictured below is the chair where it lives now, in Emmie's library.) The chair didn’t need to be a relic sitting in my living room. It needed to be in a school library, surrounded by children. And now I can picture Emmie sitting in that chair just like Robin — a gleam in her eyes, a big smile on her face, and a spirited voice — launching into a favorite picture book and continuing our common work in sharing the best of books with children.