From: Binawill at aol.com <Binawill>
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 12:12:08 -0500

I can only speak for what I have been doing this year. I am on the "real" committee and so am trying to do some Mock Caldecotts whenever possible...both to see what people like and to give people an opportunity to understand the process better. For the local children's librarians roundtable this past Monday, I solicited nominations from the attendees and asked them to bring along a copy of the book(s) they recommended. I then added to their list books that had been suggested in other places such as PUBYAC, and the New England Children's BOoksellers Advisory Council's virtual Mock Caldecott. (More about that below...) I peppered the list with books that have received starred reviews in SLJ, Booklist, Hornbook, and Publishers Weekly: Booksense '76 children's list, independent bookstore newsletters, and books that people are talking about.

When I sent out the list to the attendees, I put their books in one list and the other books suggesting that they might want to look at them. On my way that morning, I threw a not entirely random group of books into tote bags to bring along. Each person talked about the books she or he brought for a minute. Then we browsed and voted once for first, second and third choice. Then we took the top 5 books and voted just among those by ranking. Using the sacred Caldecott vote scoring method, we came up with our winners. (When Marian Sang illustrated by Brian Selnick won. Honors to Duck on A Bike by David Shannon, Pot That Juan Built by David Diaz, Story for Bear by Jim LaMarche, and The Three Questions by Jon Muth.)

This is the fourth year that our Roundtable has done a Mock Caldecott. We have been blessed to have the two previous chairs in our neighborhood so they gave wonderful presentations to the group. (It also meant I could say "you nowknow the drill by heart-let's look at books!")

For my virtual Mock Caldecott, I solicited suggestions of top 3 choices from my listserve group of New England Children's BOoksellers. (NECBA) We are midstream on this but I just figured out how to do this...I will send the list of all suggested books (pe rhaps peppering in a few books they may have not noted) out to all who responded to me. They will then rank-vote back. Of those, I will make a "short list" and send it back out to them. Then we will have our "winner!" Easier than getting people from all over New England into one room during their busiest time of year!

The ones at my house are a free-for-all looking at the books in my house. (There are about 500 books, so needless to say, I have cut out a lot of books from the
"running.") I put them into apple crates to look through.

My adult book group was overwhelmed when we met in November. We are meeting this Friday so I will weed out more titles so that in the short time we have, there will be more people reading the same books! (I was working with a group on non-children's book people...)

On Monday, I will be hosting a group of children's books writers and illustrators. Rule #1 with them is that we will not consider any of their books that day. I think it will be fascinating to hear what they have to say about the artwork and book production side of things.

Since ALA Midwinter is so late, I will most likely host a few more Sunday afternoon meetings with a random assembly of people from the library, friends, artists I know and anyone else. Maybe by then I will just want to go on a vacation instead!

I may drive myself crazy, but so far I think it is lots of fun! I will let you know results of the future Mock Caldecotts!

Bina Williams Bridgeport (CT) Public Library
Received on Wed 11 Dec 2002 11:12:08 AM CST