Writing Awards Series: The Caldecott Medal

Noel De Vries is a children’s librarian in central Illinois who loves doing all the voices. A homeschool graduate, she is currently studying under the likes of Dante and Shakespeare, while adding to the ever-growing novel in her desk drawer.

Remember Alice ? The girl who followed a white rabbit and tried to have tea and met a caterpillar smoking a hookah? Perhaps most importantly, the girl who asked, “What is the use of a book without pictures?” She would have liked the Caldecott.

It wasn’t until 1937, fifteen years after the Newbery medal was established, that an award was suggested to honor the artists creating distinguished picture books for children. Since then, many of bedtime’s very favorite titles have received the golden sticker: Madeline’s Rescue, Make Way for Ducklings, Where the Wild Things Are, The Polar Express. The popularity of these books may not be due to awards, but for artists, the Caldecott is proof that children’s picture books are as deserving of honor and encouragement as novels are.

Randolph Caldecott would certainly have agreed. One of three influential children's illustrators, including Kate Greenaway, who worked in England in the 19th century, the medal’s namesake created pictures for children that were unique to their time in both humor and their ability to convey a sense of vitality and action that complemented the stories they accompanied.

Some artists, however, such as this year’s Caldecott recipient David Wiesner, throw accompaniment to the wind and take Alice ’s question even further, asking, What is the use of a book with words? Wiesner’s Flotsam, about an underwater camera that provides a boy with surprising views from the bottom of the sea, is completely devoid of text. To tell an enthralling story using only illustrations is truly a feat worth recognizing.

Eligibility for the Caldecott is quite simple. A book must be suitable for young audiences, the original work of an American resident, published in America in the previous year, in English. A selection committee from the American Library Association, comprised of school and public librarians, awards the medal each Spring, paying close attention to the visual experience each book provides.

A distinguished picture book, according to the official definition, exemplifies “excellence of execution in the artistic technique employed; excellence of pictorial interpretation of story, theme, or concept; of appropriateness of style of illustration to the story, theme or concept; of delineation of plot, theme, characters, setting mood or information through the pictures.”

Certainly we can all think of illustrations that meet these guidelines. What are twelve little girls in two straight lines without Bemelman’s black and yellow sketches? Or Burton ’s Little House without the city closing in, bit by bit? As Committee Chair Janice Del Negro said, “Telling tales through imagery is what storytellers have done through the ages.” From 1938 to the present, librarians have sought to honor this reality with the Caldecott Medal, reminding us that words may come and go, but we should never dismiss the value of a book with pictures.