Caldecott Medal
The Caldecott Medal is awarded each year to, "the most distinguished American picture book for children." This year's winner is A Ball for Daisy, written and illustrated by Chris Raschka. In this wordless picture book, Daisy is a sweet little dog who just loves her ball. She loves to play with it and chase it and fetch it, and even loves to curl up for a nap with it. One day Daisy's owner takes her to the park to play and tragically her ball is popped by another dog. Poor Daisy! She is so saddened by the loss of her favorite toy. But the next day when Daisy and her owner return to the park, the strange dog and his owner are also there, this time with a gift: A new ball for Daisy. All is well in the world again. What impresses me most about Raschka's illustrations is the way he is able to blend simplicity and unevenness to tell Daisy's story. I especially love the images of Daisy sleeping on the couch. Raschka paints a striped couch, but leaves out the lines that specifically detail the arms, cushins, ect. Only Daisy's presence on the sofa indicates where these dimension lines should be. The result is a cozy feeling that seems to reflect Daisy's mood perfectly.Three Caldecott Honor books were also named:
-Blackout written and illustrated by John Rocca
-Grandpa Green written and illustrated by Lane Smith
-Me, Jane written and illustrated by Patrick McDonnell
Newbery Medal
The Newbery Medal is given every year to, "the most outstanding contribution to children's literature." This year's award was given to Jack Gantos for his novel Dead End in Norvelt. A description of the book, taken from Gantos' website, follows: "Melding the entirely true and the wildly fictional, Dead End in Norvelt is the story of an incredible two months for a boy named Jack Gantos, whose plans for vacation adventure are suddenly ruined when he is grounded by his feuding parents for what seems like forever. But escape comes where Jack least expects it, once he begins helping an elderly neighbor with a most unusual chore—a chore involving the newly dead, molten wax, twisted promises, Girl Scout cookies, underage driving, lessons from history, obituaries, Hells Angels, and countless bloody noses. Endlessly surprising, this sly, sharp-edged narrative is the author at his very best, making readers crack up at the most shocking things in a depiction of growing up in an off-kilter world where the characters are as unpredictable and over-the-top as they come."Two Newbery Honor books were also named:
-Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
-Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin
My Thoughts
Predicting who will win the Caldecott Medal is, in my opinion, incredibly difficult given the number of beautiful picture books published every year. A Ball for Daisy is truly a worthy winner. I have a very soft place in my heart for wordless picture books so I was especially pleased to see this book take home the big prize. Quiet, sweet books that tug at your heartstrings, just as Daisy and the other Honor books do, have also been popular in recent years and it was interesting to see this trend continue.
Recent trends also continued to be seen in this year's Newbery award. Historical fiction remains popular, and every book granted a Newbery Medal or Honor this year was a work of this genre. Other Newbery surpises did make an appearance as well. Though I wasn't too incredibly shocked to see the big medal awarded to Gantos for Dead End in Norvelt (there had been plenty of buzz), I was rather surprised at the omission of Gary Schmidt's book Okay for Now from any kind of award. Breaking Stalin's Nose also blindsided this reader - this book wasn't even on my radar. Fortunately, the book sounds like an interesting read and I'm eager to get my hands on it.
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