This evening I attended a webinar sponsored by SCBWI (the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators—the major professional organization for children’s book creators). Titled “Inside the Caldecott Award With Jewel Davis.”
Jewel Davis, Martha and Nancy Lee Bivens Distinguished Professor for Children and Reading at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, is the chair for the Caldecott Award. She gave a focused and fascinating presentation on how the Caldecott works. This included how many books are considered (more than 800), how the committee worked, and, most interesting, the standards used to evaluate the books evaluated.
The process described was rigorous, even inspiring, and Davis illustrated her points about the standards used to judge books and what a picture book can be with a series of specific examples from this year’s books.
I’ve served as a judge for a literary award (the Philip K. Dick Award, for paperback original science fiction), and I can attest that the process was neither this rigorous nor this educational for those involved. Davis really gave a sense of learning through engaging with these books and the Caldecott’s standards, particularly for how images work and interact with the text.
And I added new books to my to be read list.
