Post #13: Caldecott & Newbery Awards

Now that I have finished all of my Caldecott & Newbery selections for this blog, I thought I’d go ahead and tackle Task #4: Describe the difference between the two awards.



According to the ALA, the Newbery Medal is awarded annually for the most distinguished American children's book published the previous year. The award was proposed on June 22, 1921 by Frederic G. Melcher. He suggested that the award be named for the 18th century English bookseller John Newbery. The Newbery was the first children’s book award in the world. The winner of the very first Newbery Award in 1922 was The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon. The 2010 Newbery Medal winner is When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. The Newbery Medal is an award for the text of a book and honors books that make a distinguished contribution to American literature for children.


The idea for an award for illustrations in children’s books also came from Frederic G. Melcher in 1937. According to the ALA, the Caldecott Medal "shall be awarded to the artist of the most distinguished American Picture Book for Children published in the United States during the preceding year. The award shall go to the artist, who must be a citizen or resident of the United States, whether or not he be the author of the text.” The medal was designed in 1937 by René Paul Chambellan. It is made of bronze, with the name of the winner and the date engraved on the back of the medal. The award is administered by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the ALA. The Caldecott Medal is named after Randolph Caldecott, who was an influential illustrator of children’s books in English during the 19th century. He is noted for his unique illustrations that complemented stories with humor and movement. The winner of the very first Caldecott Medal Award in 1938 was Animals of the Bible, A Picture Book, illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop. The 2010 Caldecott Medal winner is The Lion & the Mouse, illustrated and written by Jerry Pinkney. The Caldecott Medal is an award for artwork / illustrations in children’s books.


Since the Newbery and Caldecott Medals were awarded, the selection committees often named “runners-up”. In 1971, the “runners-up” were officially declared to be “honor books”. While only one Medal Award winner is selected each year, as few as one or as many as five Honor books may be named.

One award is not better than the other. The awards are designed to recognize different aspects of children’s literature. The Newbery is an indication of the quality of the actual text of the book, while the Caldecott is an indication of the quality of the artwork of a book.

References
American Library Association. (2010). Book and Media Awards. Retrieved March 20, 2010 from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/index.cfm.

Post #12: Hondo & Fabian

Title: Hondo & Fabian
Author & Illustrator: Peter McCarty
Category: Caldecott Medal Honor Book


Hondo & Fabian is a sweet story about a dog named Hondo and a cat named Fabian. The story begins with each of them asleep in their respective places – the cat in the windowsill and the dog on the floor. Each one spends the day in a different way. Hondo goes to the beach to play with his friend Fred, while Fabian stays at home to play with the baby. The illustrations are smoky, almost like everything is illustrated under candlelight. The pictures are also very simple – not too much to distract from the focal point of the page. In one illustration, the baby holds Fabian in her arms. The windowsill is visible, but nothing on the wall or floor takes away from the baby and Fabian. Hondo and Fred play in the waves at the beach. Fabian unrolls a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. At the end of the story, and the end of the day, both animals resume their original positions and rest after a playful day. I like this book because the illustrations are easy to look at – if that makes any sense. They are easy on the eyes. The little pictures are soft and gentle. Peter McCarty has also written and illustrated other children’s books, including Little Bunny on the Move and Baby Steps. He has also illustrated Night Driving and Frozen Man. This book is similar to his other books in that all of the pictures have very soft, earthy tones. This method of using warm, washed-out colors seems to carry through to his other books. The illustrations are a little cartoonish; however, something about them is also very lifelike. The faces of Hondo and Fabian seem very real. Reading this book has reinforced to me that illustrations in children’s books vary so much. And….illustrations that are deemed excellent and award-winning also vary widely. The Caldecott Award recognizes many different styles of artwork in children’s literature. I think I got to see a good sampling of that with my Caldecott choices for this blog.

Post #11: Martin's Big Words

Title: Martin’s Big Words
Author: Doreen Rappaport
Illustrator: Bryan Collier
Category: Recent Book that Addresses Diversity (Picture Story Book)

The cover of this book is adorned with a close-up illustration of the face of Dr. King, Jr. No words. It is absolutely striking. I selected this book for this category because I really do feel that it belongs in every school library media center collection. As a picture book that addresses diversity, Martin’s Big Words has so much to offer. First, this book is highly acclaimed. It is a Caldecott Honor Book, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book, and the recipient of the 2001 Best Illustrated Children’s Book award from the New York Times Book Review. The illustrations are interesting and unique. The pictures appear to be formed from torn pieces of colorful paper. They are like a feast for the eyes. The book tells the story of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. It follows him from his life as a little boy in the south during segregation to his rise as a national leader. Martin’s big words were not lengthy, scholarly words – like Bill O’Reilly’s words of the day – meant to impress. No, Martin’s words were heavy, hopeful words from the heart. Martin’s words were love, together, and peace. At the bottom of most pages, a quote from Martin is presented in big, bright, bold letters. I love the page that says Martin “taught others to fight with words, not fists.” What a legacy. The spread that holds these words also has an illustration of a beautiful little girl in front of the American flag on the opposite page. It appears to be illustrated with torn scraps of paper, woven together into a beautiful tapestry like mismatched pieces of a puzzle. The book is visually appealing, but also historically important. While the pictures are attractive, the story is not sugar-coated. The violence and anger and fear that were prevalent in the days of the civil rights movement are conveyed in a way that is appropriate for children, but accurately enough to fully convey the seriousness of the time. The book ends with Martin’s death, but the story offers the hope that his words are still alive for us today. I honestly haven’t read a whole lot of books that address diversity, but I fell in love with this one. I think it is a “must have” for the Library Media Center! From this book, I once again learned that heavy and serious subjects can be addressed in the format of a picture book. I find this method of presenting nonfiction subject matter to be very appealing. Martin Luther

Post #10: Kitten's First Full Moon

Title: Kitten’s First Full Moon
Author & Illustrator: Kevin Henkes
Category: Caldecott Medal Award Book

Kitten’s First Full Moon has the look and feel of a really old-fashioned book. I think that’s why I liked it so much. It reminded me of books that I read when I was a little girl. The illustrations were simple, so simple in fact that they did not in any way overshadow the story. The story was very simple as well. This charming little story – that would be perfectly suited to bedtime reading – tells about kitten’s first glimpse of a full moon. Kitten thinks that the big round white ball in the sky is an inviting bowl of milk. All of the illustrations are black, and white, and shades of gray charcoal. Everything is outlined in dark black lines so that the images just seem to “pop”. They are incredibly simple, basic little drawings – not lifelike at all – but appealing in an effortless way. Kitten stretches toward to sky and sticks out her tongue to catch a drop of milk, but catches a bug instead. Every other page features kitten in the lower left corner and the moon in the upper right corner. Between them is just white space and the words, “Still, there was the little bowl of milk, just waiting.” The repetition of this line and this predictable page would be very appealing to kids. I imagine that this is the kind of book kids would want read over and over again. Kitten tries and tries to reach the bowl of milk / moon. She pulls and stretches and tumbles. She cannot reach it. Kitten runs toward the moon and climbs a tree, trying to reach it. She sees the reflection of the moon in a pond below and races down to dive in. Kitten gets soaked, but still has no milk. At the end of the story, Kitten is wet, sad, and tired – so she heads back home, dejected. When she arrives, she finds a big bowl of milk on her step, just waiting for her. The book ends with the words “Lucky Kitten” – Kitten curled up beside the empty bowl and the moon shining down on her. Kevin Henkes’ Caldecott Medal Award Winning Book Kitten’s First Full Moon shares many similarities with his other pictures books, such as A Good Day, Old Bear, and My Garden. Of course, the stark contrast is the lack of color in Kitten’s First Full Moon. However, the drawings are created in much the same style. The heavy outline is present in the illustrations in the other books as well. Henkes also has a series of Mouse Books featuring characters like Wendell, Wemberly, Chester, and Chrysanthemum. Henkes’ book Olive's Ocean was a 2004 Newbery Honor book and the book Owen was a 1994 Caldecott Honor book. The new thing I learned from reading this book is that impressive, even award-winning, artwork can be simple and basic. I really am beginning to realize that the Caldecott Medals and Honors recognize a wide range of accomplishments in the area of illustrations. The styles, media, and colors used in the award books vary widely. It’s good to see that diversity is recognized as an important factor in children’s books, even in the illustrations.

Post #9: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Title: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Author: Judi Barrett
Illustrator: Ron Barrett

Category: Children’s Book Produced as a Feature Film

For my first children’s book and movie comparison, I have selected Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. In this case, the movie is definitely just “loosely based on” or perhaps merely “inspired by” the book. There are many more differences than similarities, but I’ll discuss both in detail. First, the characters in the book and the characters in the movie are completely different. The book features Grandpa and his two grandchildren as the central characters. Grandpa tells the story of the town that gets all its food from the sky, the town of Chewandswallow. The bulk of the book is Grandpa’s story. It is filled with eye-popping illustrations of raining entrees that grow increasingly larger and larger. The book ends when Grandpa’s story ends. The children go outside to play in the snow and find that the sun rising over a large snow-covered hill makes them think of mashed potatoes with a pat of butter. None of these characters are in the movie. The main character in the movie is Flint Lockwood – a young inventor who creates a machine that causes the effect illustrated in the book. Grandpa and his story are not mentioned at all, even for the purpose of establishing the storyline in the movie. Rather, the movie seems to take the idea of the town that is presented in the book and attempts to explain how the town came to be.

The name of the town is also another big difference. The name of the town in the book is Chewandswallow. In the movie, the name of the town is initially Swallow Falls. The name is only changed after town begins receiving food from the sky. Flint Lockwood is an aspiring inventor who has spent his life building machine after machine that is failure after failure. Finally, he builds a machine that turns water into food. He does this because he desperately wants to do something to help the town. Everyone in Swallow Falls must eat sardines, because the Baby Brent sardine canning factory has closed and there is nothing else to do with all the sardines – the town’s only industry. In an attempt to resuscitate the town’s economy (and put a little money in his own pocket), the mayor has spent the town’s whole budget to create “Sardine Land”. Flint’s machine is accidentally sent into space at the mayor’s unveiling of “Sardine Land” – setting off a series of disastrous bumps and bangs that completely disrupt the unveiling. Everyone in town is angry with Flint because he has destroyed “Sardine Land.” The whole town thinks Flint is crazy, until the sky opens up and begins to rain cheeseburgers. Flint’s invention has worked! Then, of course, he becomes the town hero.

A young weather girl intern – Sam Sparks – is sent to Swallow Falls to cover the unveiling of the dirty, scheming mayor’s big idea to save the town. The young intern with the horrible assignment nobody wanted achieves overnight fame covering the “unusual” weather in Swallow Falls. This becomes a not-so-typical boy meets girl story; however, Flint and Sam do fall in love by the end of the movie. As the storyline progresses, the townspeople deluge Flint with special food orders because he is able to control what comes out of the sky. He is able to adjust the menu. This is the part of the movie that is most closely connected to the book. Scattered throughout the movie are scenes that closely resemble illustrations from the book. The giant Jell-O mold is one such example. During a conversation with Flint about all the requests for food he had been receiving from the townspeople, Sam indicates that she loves Jell-O. Flint orders up a giant Jell-O mold. Flint takes Sam on a walk and leads her to his special surprise. She exclaims, “Jell-O’s my favorite!” Sam and Flint bounce around in the Jell-O mold, spending time together and talking. It’s at this point that Sam reveals that she too was formerly a nerd. The two bond. Another example of similarity is the sanitation department vehicle. The one depicted in the movie very closely resembles the one in the book. It’s a huge garbage truck with a giant spoon on one side and a giant fork on the other side. However, unlike the one in the book, the movie’s sanitation department vehicle launches the food into the “beyond” – Mt. Leftovers. A mountain of wasted food grows in the distance. Other examples of book illustrations that are played out on the big screen include a pancake falling on the school and pea soup fog. One funny thread of the movie is the ever-expanding mayor. The mayor is ravenous. He eats and eats and eats everything and gets bigger and bigger and bigger. In each scene he expands by ridiculous proportions. In a dramatic scene near the climax, the mayor rides into Flint’s lab on a scooter. He is bigger than ever – holding a hot dog topped with ice cream, fried eggs, and donuts. At this point, the town name has been changed to “Chewandswallow” to reflect the mayor’s “new” idea to turn the town into a tourist attraction, capitalizing on Flint’s invention.

Danger looms on the horizon. Flint knows that the machine is making the food mutate, causing it to get bigger and bigger. The mayor pressures him to keep the machine going and cook up a special pasta meal for the town’s grand re-opening. Flint takes his father to dinner one night to share his good fortune. Flint has now been embraced as a “son” to the mayor, and former favorite “Baby Brent” is yesterday’s news. In an open room restaurant, Flint and his father sit at a table and wait for their dinner to fly in. A huge steak lands on their table, completely covering it. As Flint rambles on about the mayor’s plan, his father asks, “Don’t you think that’s a big steak?” Flint’s father recognizes that something is wrong here and wants him to stop. Flint is torn. He knows he needs to stop, but he has finally made an invention that everyone likes. He is loved by the town, instead of being the outcast. He angrily storms out of the restaurant leaving his father alone. Flint caves and orders up the meal the mayor has requested. The machine goes wild. The resulting disaster is a spaghetti tornado, complete with giant meatballs (reference to the title). It threatens to destroy the town. In a confrontation with the mayor (who has sneaked into Flint’s lab and ordered an additional Vegas-style buffet) – the communication mechanism is destroyed.

Now someone has to stop the machine or the whole town will be destroyed. Flint, accompanied by Sam, Manny - her camera-guy, and Brent – all fly into space to tackle the out-of-control machine to deliver the kill-code and stop it. A giant meatball has formed around it. Realizing that the town has become too unpredictable and dangerous to inhabit, the townspeople begin to evacuate. Here we find one of the few similarities. True to the book, the citizens make boats out of the stale bread and flee from the island. Just as they are making their escape, a single cherry lands on Mt. Leftovers, causing the dam holding all the food back to break. This is also a divergence from the book. The citizens are now fleeing from a food avalanche, in addition to a food hurricane. As expected, Flint’s plan does not work – completely typical of his history of disasters. However he is able to stop the machine using his first failed invention – spray on shoes. His friends escape, but he is left behind. Another failed invention – rat-birds – carry him back to his home, where the townspeople are waiting for him on their bread-boats in the harbor. In the end – the town is saved. The movie is hilarious – but not really anything like the book.
I liked the book because of the simple, but beautiful illustrations that depicted the ridiculous idea of food falling from the sky. My son loved the book, so it has become one of my favorites. I also liked the movie because of the sweet storyline about a failed young inventor who saves the day. It was predictable and sappy sweet, but I liked it nonetheless. I also enjoyed how the movie did take illustrations from the book and reflect those on the big screen. I supposed my reaction to the book and the movie were greatly influenced by the fact that my son enjoyed both of them so much. He loves the weather, so this over-the-top story about the sky raining food was a big hit with him. This book is probably similar to other fantasy books, but the concept of food falling from the sky is unique and has great kid-appeal. I think that the one thing I learned about children’s literature from reading this book and watching the movie is simply that author’s have so much freedom. The author can create her own world and make it as strange or outrageous as she pleases. No idea is too far-fetched. That’s what I love about children’s literature – it allows kids the freedom to exercise their imaginations!

Post #8: The Three Pigs

Title: The Three Pigs
Author & Illustrator: David Wiesner
Category: Caldecott Medal Award Book


When I selected this book, I thought I’d be reading a beautifully illustrated picture book about the traditional tale of the Three Little Pigs. The cover features a gorgeous close up drawing of the pigs faces, practically dripping with mischievousness. As the story began, I was struck by how ordinary the illustrations seemed. I began to wonder why in the world that this book had been awarded the Caldecott Medal. Then, just when the first little piggy is supposed to escape and run to stick house of the second little piggy, the wolf ate him…or so the story said. Actually, the wolf blew the pig out of the story and the illustration changed. Now the pig resembled those on the cover, with beautiful detail – almost lifelike. The wolf continued on until he blew all three pigs out of the story. Then the story pages began to turn sideways and curl and turn over – in the illustrations. The pigs decided to explore. One page featured the pigs taking a ride on a paper airplane, made from pages of the story. A beautiful two-page spread shows close-ups of the pigs’ faces against the stark contrast of the storybook page paper airplane. I’m not sure what the exact difference is between the two methods or media used in illustrating this page, but the difference is obvious. It clearly makes the point that the storybook looks a certain way and the pigs look different because they have essentially come to life. One two-page layout is actually completely white, with just a small illustration of the piggies’ tales from behind in the upper left corner of the first page. The next layout is nearly the same, except for an even smaller illustration of the pigs from above, about to land their paper airplane. They crash and then proceed to enter a very colorful nursery rhyme book. They find themselves right in the middle of “Hey Diddle Diddle”. I really like the illustrations that show the pigs halfway in and halfway out of the story. The part that’s in is illustrated in the same fashion as the story itself, while the part that’s outside is illustrated much differently – like the cover. The cat with the fiddle escapes from the story with the pigs. The threesome then frees a dragon, just before he is to be slain by a prince. They continue on walking through halls of pages and crumpled up sheets of paper. They unfold the page in which the wolf knocks on the last door & re-enter the story. The dragon sticks his head out the door to answer the wolf & knocks the wolf to the ground. Realizing the control they now have over the story, The pigs shake the letters loose from the story and make alphabet soup. In the end, the three pigs, the cat, and the dragon sit around the table and happily enjoy their soup. I have to be honest – I did not care for this book. I just found it to be odd and weird. I cannot imagine that I could engage my son in this book. Perhaps I feel this way because I like for things to follow a predictable pattern. This book certainly does NOT do that. It is wild and unreal, and I just didn’t like it. Wiesner also illustrated another Caldecott Medal book, the wordless picture book Tuesday. I’ve also looked at this book and found it strange as well. Wiesner is obviously a gifted illustrator; however, I just find the style used in these two books to be distracting. Many of his books feature fantasy – the improbable, the unimaginable. It reminds me a little of the outrageous illustrations in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, although Wiesner’s illustrations are much more colorful and vivid. While I have read some fractured fairy tales, this book is really in a category of its own because of the illustrations. I think his style is totally unique & cannot really compare it to others that are similar. I have definitely learned from this book that mixed media can be used to separate dimensions in a story. I’ve also learned that traditional stories can be re-told with a modern twist.