From: Kathleen Horning <horning>
Date: Wed, 07 Feb 1996 11:38:00 -600

The Caldecott Award winning books often seem to "push-the-art-envelope" in terms of their artistic merit. In many cases, they represent bold innovation and intrepretation by an illustrator and set a standard for subsequent children's book art by opening the door of possibilities for illustrators to go through in reaching children.

Like others, I found Officer Buckle & Gloria to be a delightful, cheery, child-appealing book. Based on what my "push-the-art envelope" theory of Caldecott winners, I also didn't consider it particularly distinguished although like the others, I found the link between pictures and words in this picture book to be particularly strong.

More telling, for the first time in years and years, we actually had the book in our collection for a couple of months before the award. This is VERY unusual. As we tend to buy quite a bit based on patron demand and what will circ well
(and so, almost always pick up award winners after their announcement), it almost blew us out of the water to actually own the Caldecott Award winner. This points out to me that the book has alot of child-appeal and jump-off-the-shelf potential; it also makes me think, like, wow, how distinguished can it truly be if we own it already (sorry, it's what I actually thought - we're a pretty pragmatic collection building bunch here. :-)

It's interesting, as always, to see how the Caldecott award can encompass so many different styles and interpretations in its appreciation of children's book illustration.

Marge Loch-Wouters lochwout at athenet.net Menasha's Public Library lochwouters at winnefox.org Menasha WI 54952 414 751Q65
Received on Wed 07 Feb 1996 11:38:00 AM CST