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Rapunzel and Caldecott terms
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From: Kathleen Horning <horning>
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 11:28:07 -0600
John and Walter have raised the interesting issue of Caldecott terms, which set me off on a search for the most recent edition of the ALA publication, "The Newbery and Caldecott Awards: A Guide to the Medal and Honor Books." This book includes the full terms that the Newbery and Caldecott committees both work with each year. (The terms are always the same, year to year, committee to committee, unless the ALSC Board makes a change in them -- something that is never done lightly.)
In any case, I did not find the words "venturesome creativity,"
"Original vision," or "subversive" in the official terms; however, the former in particular sounds very familiar to me. Does anyone know its source?
The official criteria that the Caldecott Committee must use are:
"In identifying a distinguished picture book for children: a) Committee members need to consider: 1) Excellence in execution of the artistic technique employed; 2) Excellence of pictorial interpretation of story, theme or concept; of appropriateness of style of illustration to the story, theme or concept; of delineation of plot, theme, characters, setting, mood, or information through the pictures. b) Committee members must consider excellence of presentation in recognition of a child audience. (Note: elsewhere in the Caldecott terms, "child" is defined as "persons of ages up to and including age fourteen."
Certainly an articulate argument can be made for "Rapunzel" using the above-listed terms, as Linnea and Jean have aptly demonstrated.
But I'm with you, John -- I greatly admire those rare, subversive picture books that show original vision and venturesome creativity. It's just that they have nothing to do with the Caldecott terms as they are now written. That's not to say that they're mutually exclusive:
"Where the Wild Things Are" and "Black and White" are past Caldecott Award winners that seem to fit all those descriptions: subversive in their original vision; creatively venturesome; and... distinguished!
Kathleen T. Horning Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education UW-Madison
Received on Mon 02 Feb 1998 11:28:07 AM CST
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 11:28:07 -0600
John and Walter have raised the interesting issue of Caldecott terms, which set me off on a search for the most recent edition of the ALA publication, "The Newbery and Caldecott Awards: A Guide to the Medal and Honor Books." This book includes the full terms that the Newbery and Caldecott committees both work with each year. (The terms are always the same, year to year, committee to committee, unless the ALSC Board makes a change in them -- something that is never done lightly.)
In any case, I did not find the words "venturesome creativity,"
"Original vision," or "subversive" in the official terms; however, the former in particular sounds very familiar to me. Does anyone know its source?
The official criteria that the Caldecott Committee must use are:
"In identifying a distinguished picture book for children: a) Committee members need to consider: 1) Excellence in execution of the artistic technique employed; 2) Excellence of pictorial interpretation of story, theme or concept; of appropriateness of style of illustration to the story, theme or concept; of delineation of plot, theme, characters, setting, mood, or information through the pictures. b) Committee members must consider excellence of presentation in recognition of a child audience. (Note: elsewhere in the Caldecott terms, "child" is defined as "persons of ages up to and including age fourteen."
Certainly an articulate argument can be made for "Rapunzel" using the above-listed terms, as Linnea and Jean have aptly demonstrated.
But I'm with you, John -- I greatly admire those rare, subversive picture books that show original vision and venturesome creativity. It's just that they have nothing to do with the Caldecott terms as they are now written. That's not to say that they're mutually exclusive:
"Where the Wild Things Are" and "Black and White" are past Caldecott Award winners that seem to fit all those descriptions: subversive in their original vision; creatively venturesome; and... distinguished!
Kathleen T. Horning Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education UW-Madison
Received on Mon 02 Feb 1998 11:28:07 AM CST
