When I saw the title of the book that won this year’s Caldecott Award I was shocked. When I first read Hello Lighthouse I was not impressed. My original estimation of the book was ” I do not believe this title is Caldecott-worthy.” In spite of that fact, I included it in the books I shared with my fifth grade students for the Mock Caldecott unit. I wasn’t surprised when it wasn’t one of the titles picked for their projects.
This week I decided to see if I understood my students as well as I thought I did. With my third – fifth graders (55 students), I read the book to them and had them silently fill out my Caldecott Criteria Questions worksheet (which is available for signing up for my mailing list). We have been using these worksheets for 4-5 weeks so the students are very familiar with the Caldecott Criteria. As I was reading the book/showing the pictures, many of the students had bored looks on their faces or were generally not paying attention to the book. We did a vote by hands so the students could see where their classmate fell on whether or not the book should have won the Caldecott. Of the 55 students who voted only 32 agreed that the book should have won. There were several who commented on a book that they thought was better/more appealing to children. I had some students tell me “I didn’t really like the book, but I said it should have won because the artist did a good job.”
I did not read the book to my younger children. If I asked them if they liked the book, most would say “yes” just because they thought that is what I wanted them to say.
So my questions are – Do the members of the Caldecott Committee really understand what appeals to children? Which is the most important criteria? If an artist shows excellence in his/her technique but the book doesn’t appeal to children, should it win?
