From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2000 10:11:50 -0600

We're at the end of the announced CCBC-Net Discussion of the 2000 Newbery and Caldecott Award & Honor Books. Some of us aren't finished thinking about them, that's certain, and others haven't had the chance to read them yet.

There will still be time within the CCBC-Net community to reflect on
"Bud, Not Buddy" because of the other significant honor Curtis received for this novel: The 2000 Coretta Scott King Author Award. The other books cited for excellence through the Caldecott & Newbery process will continue to unfold in our lives as we become more familiar with them and as we witness the responses of children to each.

It's important to point out that the books selected by the Newbery and Caldecott Award Committees are the ones surviving the reading, evaluation and discussion of literally hundreds or more eligible books. They are the books compared to each other using each committee's separate criteria for excellence. It's like comparing the proverbial apples and oranges to be on one of those committees.

As Katy pointed out in her message yesterday, the Caldecott Committee discusses the effectiveness of the artist's decisions in the books each member has suggested and nominated for committee consideration. According to the manual, "The committee is to make its decision primarily on the illustration, but other components of a book are to be considered especially when they make a book less effective as a children's picture book. Such other components might include the written text, the overall design of the book, etc."

Committee members may not discuss earlier editions of a book. A committee member nominating a book available in one or more earlier editions or variants will already have made the necessary comparisons and determined that the new edition is worthy of consideration in and of itself. A new edition of any earlier work can be compared only to the other books everyone on the committee is assumed to have in common, i.e. books already suggested or nominated.

Whether or not the books finally selected through a rigorous balloting process end up having a thematic link with each other is completely beyond the committee's deliberations. Those of us who later see and read books given heightened visibility through an award process are tempted to discern a trend, common theme or committee
"statement." External second-guessing is always tempting, but it has nothing to do with the reasons why each book was independently selected as distinguished by members of the Newbery or Caldecott Award Committee. It's the hope of every hard-working book award committee member that the committee's final choices will highlight excellence in books for children in that given year, period.

Thanks for your comments about the 2000 Newbery and Caldecott Award & Honor Books. We hope that the CCBC-Net discussion has stimulated your thinking and maybe even other discussions about these fine books.

Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.education.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/) A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison
Received on Tue 01 Feb 2000 10:11:50 AM CST