From: Ginny Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 18:12:00 -600

I'm writing in response to some of Nina's questions about the Caldecott Award. In some respects, my comments can be applied to the Newbery Award, as well.

1) In my opinion, librarians and teachers have such strong feelings about what wins and does not win these two awards, because their work with children/young adults will be affected - in part - by the specific books so honored each year. These books will become part of the "Caldecott & Newbery canon," if you will tolerate the use of the word "canon" in that way. These are the books that will get onto reading lists others make, these are the books that will be interjected into the professional lives of many - ready or not. Now, in part, that's the idea! To set a high standard, to encourage publishers to look for and publish books that might be N-C contenders, to have books of high quality end up on reading lists and thus suggested to a wide range of readers, book buyers and others over time. The publisher of The Midwife's Apprentice ordered a second printing of 50,000 books on 2/21 (day of N. announcement), and a third printing 25,000 became necessary two days later. The books announced for these awards do sell! Great! Have you looked lately at the "Children's Best Sellers Lists" appearing monthly in Publishers' Weekly? Apart from recent N-C winners, typically those best-sellers are media-product books and pop culture series books. We are living in a dream world if we don't realize that high quality usually is not equated with high sales. (Come on now, publishers and promotion staff - and former publishers and former promotion staffers
- in the CCBC-NET community! What do you want to say to correct this or add to what I've just written?) Even though professionals do fume
"Average!" they really know that all of the award winners and honor books are definitely more than ordinary. But they, and I, want these books to be "distinguished" as per the CCBC-NET conversations last week.

2) Which leads me to what I always say about the books winning these awards: once the N-C spotlight shines (glares?) down on the winning books, very few of them can withstand the close scrutiny. All manner of comparisons will be made. Dissertations will be written. All the discourse will take place out of context of the original decision. Most of us do not have access to the eligible books of a particular year & none of us were among the 15 who discussed them in?pth for three days, doing their best to achived an informed consensus, all the while knowing that many people would soon say the equivalent of
"average!"

3) The Batchelder and Coretta Scott King Awards have been announced at the same press conference only in recent years. This is progress. These other two important formal acknowledgements (from ALA-related committees) of several of the children's/y.a. books of the year are now getting that least that much attention. It's critical for people who care about excellence from a variety of perspectives to seek and actively inquire about many annual book awards and distinctions. This will give those decisions greater importance and even - perhaps someday - increased market clout. At the CCBC, we give these four awards equal attention and visibility, and throughout the year, we attempt to provide visibility for other awards and distinctions, as well. No matter where you live, I encourage you to ask what won the Batchelder and the Coretta Scott King Awards when someone starts talking about the N-C Awards. Later this spring the Amercias Award will be announced. Be ready for this, insist on getting this information. (P.S. You w-i-l-l get it, because you're part of CCBC-NET!) But make this a professional habit. During July, ask what won the Boston Globe - Horn Book Awards for fiction, nonfiction and illustration. There are many kinds of excellence.

- Ginny Kruse
(gmkruse at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu)

I am going to refrain from commenting on the choices for the 1996 Caldecott medal and honor books, because I basically agree with much of what has been said already. But this outpouring of concern interests me. In a recent posting, Ginny Kruse commented on the response of attendees at an education conference in LaCrosse: "Like everyone in the CCBC-NET community who commented so far about Officer Buckle and Gloria, the people I met yesterday were not privy to the in?pth discussions of the recent Caldecott Committee. They do not know the range of the Caldecott Committee's finalists. But they want to take pride in the book that wins the Caldecott Award." It seems like many of us want to "take pride" in these awards, and so feel discouraged when, on the one hand, we want to hold up all recipients of the award, but, on the other, feel that -- personally -- we just can't do it with some individual medalist books.

I recall there was similar concern in 1993 when "Mirette on The High Wire", by Emily Arnold McCully, received the Caldecott medal. And last year's choice,
"Smoky Night", illustrated by David Diaz, concerned many for very different reasons. This leads me to wonder about the award in a larger context than just one year. We know how much the decision of the award depends on the particular committee -- yet is this taken into account in the presentation and publicity of the award? The award is presented as "ALA's choice" of the most distinguished book for the year -- is this why so many of us (even those of us who are not ALA members but fall into the large group of people represented in ALA) feel somewhat "responsible" for the award, and are so discouraged when we feel we can't agree with a particular committee's choice?

With such general guidelines (including loaded words like "distinguished" and
"excellence"), we can ever expect -- and shouldn't expect -- that any year's choice will make even a majority of us happy. In fact, I think it's very interesting and enlightening to examine each year's medalist and pondered which aspects of it were considered "excellent" and "distinguished", and why, and what that might mean about the tastes of a certain fifteen adults (the committee members). But, in light of this, I'm very concerned with the way in which the Caldecott (and Newbery) awards are received by the general public -- as INSTRINSICALLY "Best" books of the year. I think it's absolutely wonderful that they receive so much acknowledgement, but why don't the other awards and "best" lists? In the New York Times, the Tuesday after the awards were announced, a short column appeared listing the Caldecott and Newbery medalists and honor books. In smaller font, squeezed in at the bottom, were listed "other awards" including the Coretta Scott King medal for writing (although they didn't qualify that it was the wriiting award only) and the Batchelder medal. They obviously ran out of room for anything else. Does the New York Times assume that no one cares about the other awards? Could it be that no one knows about the other awards? Last week I walked into a local bookstore and asked in the children's section if they had "The Middle Passage" by Tom Feelings, which won the Coretta Scott King award for Illustration (this bookstore has a display of Caldecott and Newbery books). The clerk (who I happen to know is "in charge" of the children's section) looked up the book in the computer and told me I could find in the adult art section -- not surprising, since this book is very adult in many ways. I explained to the clerk that I'd asked her first because this book had recently won a children's award. I gave her all the details, and she was very grateful -- she hadn't know anything about it.

What can be done about the way in which Caldecott and Newbery medalists are received so that people can accept that the awards are not ordained by the ALA oracle? And what can be done to expose people to the WIDE range of Excellent and Distinguished books published every year?



Nina Lindsay Student -- School of Library and Information Studies University of Wisconsin, Madison nlindsay at mail.soemadison.wisc.edu
Received on Mon 12 Feb 1996 06:12:00 PM CST