#randolph caldecott medal

[sassafrasmoonshine]

Pamela Zagarenski • Illustrations for poet Joyce Sidman's Red Sings From Treetops: A Year in Colors • Houghton Mifflin • 2009

[alrederedmixedmedia]

Alredered Remembers English illustrator and medal namesake Randolph Caldecott, on his birthday.

[cloverdalebooks]

Hello Lighthouse

Written and illustrated by Sophie Blackall

Print book

Published April 10, 2018 by Little, Brown, and Company

Awards: Randolph Caldecott Medal (2019) 

Dimensions: 7.4 x 12, 48 pages

Age range according to publisher: The publisher’s webpage for this book seemed scrambled with information for a different title. Amazon suggested 2-6; Barnes and Noble suggested 4-8 and I agree more with the latter. 

A lighthouse and its keeper experience life on their rocky island in the early 1900s. As the keeper and his wife tend the light, have a baby, and rescue stranded sailors, they and the lighthouse witness wind, storms, fog, ice, whale migrations, and more.

The family’s time at the lighthouse comes to an end with the advent of new technology that doesn’t require a keeper’s supervision. While their departure is bittersweet, the family moves just across the water where they can still see the lighthouse. 

The art and text work together to tell a story with a linear plot. The art of Hello Lighthouse alternates between the keeper’s perspective at work and at home inside the lighthouse, and between full views of the lighthouse and the surrounding area. Some of the art set indoors is inset in a circle, reminding us that the keeper lives in a round home and perhaps also giving a nautical nod to a spyglass view. The different seasons and weather conditions surrounding the lighthouse help to personify it and the sea, and emphasize the passing of time. 

Color across the book is cohesive yet varied: interior images show cozy and bright colors in clothing and decor, highlighting the loving and close family relationships. Exterior images range from jewel-toned on sunny days to dark in stormy conditions, and the diversity of colors in art of one location over time help to stress the many different conditions one experiences living on the sea. 

The text utilizes repetition on the pages showing the lighthouse and its surroundings: one line describing the weather conditions is followed by “Hello! … Hello! … Hello!” Children may enjoy looking forward to the arrival of these pages and calling out the “Hellos!” Other repetitive sentences frame the first and last pages and the supply boat arrival scenes. 

The world and era of this book is one that children will probably not be very familiar with. Many may be eager to consider what it would be like to live on an island with only a couple of people for company, and without electricity or a grocery store. Children might make a list of all the things they are accustomed to in today’s world that they would need an alternative to at the lighthouse. A further discussion might include how technological advancements mean that people don’t live in/care for lighthouses any longer, and other job areas that have changed as time passes. 

This book would be a good recommendation for someone seeking books with historical settings, nautical themes, and responsive/interactive parts. 

[winningthesweepstakes]

Tomfoolery! by Michelle Markel, illustrated by Barbara McClintock

Tomfoolery!: Randolph Caldecott and the Rambunctious Coming-of-Age of Children’s Books by Michelle Markel, illustrated by Barbara McClintock. Chronicle Books, 2023. 9780811879231  Rating: 1-5 (5 is an excellent or a Starred review) 4 Format: Hardcover picture book Genre:  Biography What did you like about the book? Randolph Caldecott (honored with the ALA’s highest medal honor for…

[naturecoaster]

Museum Hosts New Children’s Book Illustrations Exhibit, Programs

Through picture books, readers embark on visual journeys that engage all the senses and encourage curious, imaginative, and thoughtful interactions with the world around them. Museum Hosts New Children’s Book Illustrations Exhibit, Programs Since 1938, the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, has recognized the significant impact of art on early reading experiences, awarding the Caldecott Medal for excellence in this area. The Old Courthouse Heritage Museum’s new exhibit, entitled, “Young at Art,” celebrates the art ofillustration through April. This exhibition of works from Wichita Falls Museum of Art’s permanentcollection celebrates the vision and talent of twenty-eight artists, ranging from Caldecott Medal recipientsto “runner-up” honor books, as well as other illustrations by award-winning artists. It will also include miniature display about the history of Citrus County’s libraries and their current-day literacy programs.On Saturday, March 25, 2023, the museum will open the exhibit to the public. A free reception includingfree refreshments will be held from 3:00pm to 5:00pm to showcase the illustrations. All are welcome. To coincide with the exhibit, the museum will host a free “Illustration Creations” event on Saturday, April15 from 1:00pm to 3:00pm. Children (ages 5 and up) are asked to choose their favorite book with theirfavorite illustrations and bring it with them to the museum. Museum staff will help them create a 3D image from the story. Adult supervision is required for the duration of the program. Supplies are limited, so please call ahead to pre-register. In addition, the museum has welcomed Dr. Ramona Caponegro to speak at their upcoming Coffee andConversations event on Wednesday, April 26 at 7:00pm. Dr. Caponegro will introduce the man behindthe book award’s name: nineteenth-century illustrator Randolph Caldecott, explaining the importance ofthe award by examining some of the winners over the award’s 85-year history. As a member of the 2023Caldecott Medal selection committee, Dr. Caponegro will also give her insider insight into the selectionprocess of recipients today. For more information, please call (352) 341-6428 or e-mail museum@citrusbocc.com. Read the full article

[justforbooks]

Raymond Briggs, who has died aged 88, did a great deal to elevate the art of illustration to being something much more than a servant of the written word. Though he was best known for his hugely popular books Father Christmas (1973) and The Snowman (1978), his output also explored themes such as war, politics and the environment through a deeply human, very British lens that often settled on the quiet heroism of ordinary lives.

Briggs may be seen to sit comfortably in the English anecdotal tradition exemplified by Randolph Caldecott in the 19th century and Edward Ardizzone in the 20th, but his often wordless graphic literature built bridges between the picture book and the comic or graphic novel, introducing a new way of reading to the adult publishing market, or at least asking grownups to relearn the business of reading a silent visual sequence.

He started out in 1957 by hawking his portfolio around as a graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art, London, picking up freelance illustration work from newspapers, magazines and design studios. His first book commission came from the editor Mabel George at Oxford University Press, in the form of illustrations to Peter and the Piskies: Cornish Folk and Fairy Tales (1958) by Ruth Manning-Sanders.

George championed the work of a number of artists who were to transform picture-book illustration in the early 1960s, including Brian Wildsmith and Charles Keeping. She sought out printers who were at the cutting edge of developing technology, and who could do justice to the work of these emerging artists. But, as with most illustrators, Briggs’s early working years involved undertaking a range of commissions, drawing anything and everything, starting off with a schematic diagram for House and Garden magazine in 1957 – “how deep to plant your bulbs”.

As various narrative texts came his way, he realised that not all of them were of the highest quality, and took to writing himself. In 1961 he wrote and illustrated two books, Midnight Adventure and The Strange House, for the publishers Hamish Hamilton, with whom he would have a lasting working relationship.

That year, he began teaching illustration part-time at Brighton College of Art (now Brighton University’s faculty of arts) at the invitation of the then head of department, the calligrapher and engraver John R Biggs. He continued to teach for a day a week at Brighton until 1987, and his tuition was much admired and appreciated by generations of artists including the prolific illustrator and Observer political cartoonist Chris Riddell.

In 1963 Briggs had married the painter Jean Taprell Clark. Her death from leukaemia in 1973, and the deaths of his parents, led Briggs to throw himself into his work. A major breakthrough had already come in 1966, with The Mother Goose Treasury, for which he received his first Kate Greenaway medal. Father Christmas brought him a second, and catapulted him to fame. His grumbling, lavatorial and flawed Santa was immensely popular.

As with all Briggs’s subsequent titles, the book is full of autobiographical elements and references. His own childhood home and Loch Fyne holidays appear regularly and he himself pops up in the follow-up, Father Christmas Goes on Holiday (1975).

Briggs can be found standing ahead of Father Christmas in the queue for a shave at the campsite, along with the illustrator John Vernon Lord (sporting his initials on his wash bag). The author’s VW Camper van would make regular appearances too. Fungus the Bogeyman (1977) could also be seen as a character very much close to home, displaying as he does an extreme version of the author’s own tendency to be outspoken and impatient.

At Hamish Hamilton the newly arrived editor Julia MacRae (later to set up her own imprint) played a major role in developing the artist’s career. The illustrator John Lawrence, who was also published by Hamish Hamilton, recalled those days with great fondness: “All the talk was about ‘is the world ready for Fungus the Bogeyman?’ and we all turned up at the launch party in green wellingtons surrounded by buckets of suspicious-looking green liquid, wondering whether it might be the wine.”

The subject of mortality formed a recurrent theme, addressed explicitly in Briggs’s account of his parents’ lives, Ethel & Ernest: A True Story (1998), which was made into an admired full-length animation broadcast at Christmas in 2016, and implicitly in the melting at the end of The Snowman and the disappearance of The Bear in the 1994 book of that name.

But perhaps the most powerful motivation was a hatred of injustice by authority toward the powerless and naively respectful common man. The latter could be seen most directly in When the Wind Blows (1982), Briggs’s examination of an elderly couple’s attempts to follow government guidelines as nuclear war breaks out; and The Tin-Pot General and the Old Iron Woman (1984), a thinly disguised General Leopoldo Galtieri and Margaret Thatcher.

In 1982 he told the Times: “When I did [When the Wind Blows] I was not remotely a CND supporter. I simply thought it was good subject. It is highly depressing and fairly political, and I could not even think who was going to buy it. But I never think of the potential audience when I embark on a book; this was not even done specifically for children.”

Nevertheless, the children of his long-term partner, Liz, provided inspiration and source material for other projects, notably The Puddleman (2004), which grew from a remark made by one of the young children on passing a puddle while the family were out walking in the countryside.

His final book was consciously intended to be just that. Compiled across several of his last years, Time for Lights Out (2019) is a poignant, funny and deeply honest exploration of the experience of ageing and reaching the end of life, in the form of a collage of verse, drawings and random thoughts.

Many of Briggs’s books were successfully adapted for film and other media, Channel 4’s 1982 animated film version of The Snowman, with its familiar theme song Walking in the Air, became a staple of Christmas Day TV. Briggs endorsed a sequel, The Snowman and the Snowdog, broadcast in 2012. Other books were translated for stage and radio, with Briggs taking a keen interest in the overall production.

He was born in Wimbledon, south-west London, to Ethel (nee Bowyer) and Ernest Briggs. Their first meeting is beautifully described in the wordless opening sequence of the book devoted to their story. Ethel, a young parlour maid in a Belgravia house, had been innocently shaking out her duster from an upper window as Ernest passed by on his bicycle and confidently returned what he took to be a friendly wave.

Briggs attended the local Rutlish school and went on to study at Wimbledon School (now College) of Art, the Central School of Arts and Crafts (now Central Saint Martins) and, after a two-year break for national service, the Slade. His father, a milkman, had tried to dissuade his son from studying at art school, fearing that it would not equip him for stable employment.

Briggs’s keen interest in narrative drawing was not welcomed at Wimbledon School of Art, which was rooted in traditional representational painting. He recalled: “I had gone to art school to learn to draw so as to become a cartoonist. But I was soon told that cartooning was an even lower form of life than commercial art.”

Such prejudices, still not entirely eradicated today, were commonplace at art schools of the time. Although he bemoaned his tutors’ failure to recognise a “natural illustrator”, the formal training that he received imbued in Briggs a strong sense of structure and of the importance of good draughtsmanship. These equipped him well in book illustration, although he left the Slade with what he saw as a poor sense of colour and a dislike of paint. When he eventually arrived at the film version of The Snowman, he expressed pleasure at how it so faithfully and painstakingly replicated his coloured-pencil technique, despite the massively labour-intensive approach that this necessitated.

The characteristic that the journalist John Walsh described in a 2012 interview as a very English “strenuous curmudgeonliness” had become in later years a stereotype that Briggs embraced, exemplified by his column in the Oldie, Notes from the Sofa, collected in book form in 2015, where he would rail against sundry incomprehensible aspects of modern life.

But friends knew another side to Briggs – loyal and playful, an inveterate practical joker. Lord once made the mistake of confessing to a dislike of dogs in the presence of Briggs, thereby immediately committing himself to becoming the recipient of all manner of canine-related gifts on subsequent birthdays and Christmases. Like so many of his characters, Briggs’s grumpiness never quite managed to conceal an underlying warmth and kindness. In 2017 he was appointed CBE.

Liz died in 2015. He is survived by her children, Clare and Tom, and grandchildren, Connie, Tilly and Miles.

🔔 Raymond Redvers Briggs, illustrator and author, born 18 January 1934; died 9 August 2022

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[grackle-crackle-books]

The Cat Man of Aleppo by Irene Latham and Karim Shamsi-Basha, Illustrated by Yuko Shimizu

Genre/category: Caldecott Award Honoree 2021, Picture Book

Targeted Age: PreK to 2nd graders

Quick plot synopsis: When people must flee war in Aleppo, Syria, they're forced to leave beloved pets behind. Alaa, an ambulance driver, stays in Aleppo and takes care of lonely, scared cats.

Why I chose The Cat Man of Aleppo: The Cat Man of Aleppo is a 2021 Caldecott Award Honoree that depicts kindness following tragedy. Mohammad Alaa Aljaleel, known as Alaa in the book, is a real-life cat rescuer in Aleppo, Syria. A note from him appears at the beginning of the text. This book covers his story and shows the very real horror that is the Syrian civil war (2011 - ). I selected The Cat Man of Aleppo because I think it’s the perfect book to introduce concepts that Western children would not otherwise see. The story also concludes with notes from Latham, Shamsi-Basha, and Shimizu, discussing their own connections to the story, Alaa, and Aleppo.

Evaluation:

Yuko Shimizu’s digitally colored ink illustrations support the mood of scenes in The Cat Man of Aleppo. Bright pages with a bustling bazaar are immediately followed by a nearly all-black page spread featuring Alaa grieving in front of a view of Aleppo burning. The illustrations show the war-torn Aleppo that surrounds Alaa as he helps injured people. These pair with the text’s description of the increasing emptiness of the city. Brighter colors seep back into the pages as the cats are introduced. With the rescue of the cats, hope begins to find its way back into Alaa and Aleppo. Additionally, Shimizu put a lot of effort into research to represent Aleppo and its people as accurately as possible. For example, when researching Alaa myself, I recognized a real-life cat because I had seen him in Shimizu’s artwork.

The Cat Man of Aleppo tells the true story of Alaa’s efforts to protect and care for abandoned animals in Aleppo. The book follows events from his first efforts feeding cats in the street to the assistance for orphaned children he now provides. Some elements of Alaa’s story are left out, such as the bombing of the original cat sanctuary. It would have been interesting to see this event addressed, and how it contributes to Alaa’s heroic perseverance in the face of devastating loss. However, I can see why various details such as this were left out for brevity’s sake. Leaving the sanctuary bombing out also makes the story less traumatic for younger audiences. Additionally, some of the elements of Alaa’s story not in the text are referenced in the authors’ notes.

Cultural details in Latham and Shamsi-Basha’s text helps the reader to imagine the Aleppo that thrived before the war. We learn that Aleppo was a city of “pistachios and jasmine soap”, of “boiled corn and dried figs” (Shamsi-Basha & Latham, 2020). Rather than see Aleppo as only a dangerous place, The Cat Man of Aleppo encourages the image of the city as hopeful, human, and deserving of protection. These details about the food, trees, and fashion of Aleppo create this image. Alaa loves his country, his people, and of course, his cats.

Do I recommend it?: Of course! The Cat Man of Aleppo tells a powerful story of helping others in the face of horrible devastation. It’s a great way to introduce children to this topic and encourage them to follow Alaa’s example and make a positive impact on the world.

Citations:

American Library Association. (2022, January 10). Randolph Caldecott Medal. Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). https://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/caldecott

BBC News. (2019, March 7). Return of the cat man of Aleppo. https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-47473772

Shamsi-Basha, K., & Latham, I. (2020). The Cat Man of Aleppo (Y. Shimizu, Illus.). G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers.

[npr]

It is a universally acknowledged truth that a curious reader in want of a good book needs only direct their footsteps (and questions) to the nearest librarian. Librarians, after all, are always a font of good book suggestions.

So naturally, when a whole bunch of them get together for the American Library Association's annual midwinter conference, you can expect a host of recommendations to come of it. Enter: the annual Youth Media Awards, a slew of children's book prizes announced Monday, including the John Newbery and Randolph Caldecott medals.

[blackchildrensbooksandauthors]

🎉Congratulations to…🎉

The Undefeated

Kwame Alexander 

Kadir Nelson  

Versify/HMH  

Recipient of the 2020

🌟Newbery Honor Book

🌟Randolph Caldecott Medal Winner

🌟Coretta Scott King (Illustrator) Book Award

Originally performed for ESPN's The Undefeated, this poem is a love letter to black life in the United States. It highlights the unspeakable trauma of slavery, the faith and fire of the civil rights movement, and the grit, passion, and perseverance of some of the world's greatest heroes. The text is also peppered with references to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others, offering deeper insights into the accomplishments of the past, while bringing stark attention to the endurance and spirit of those surviving and thriving in the present. Robust back matter at the end provides valuable historical context and additional detail for those wishing to learn more.

Available at👉🏿| Amazon | IndieBound

Find more children’s and young adult books by Black authors here

<> Follow BCBA on Twitter | Instagram <> Subscribe to Our Newsletter <>

[anniekoh]

Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks written by Suzanne Slade illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) is known for her poems about "real life." She wrote about love, loneliness, family, and poverty—showing readers how just about anything could become a beautiful poem. Exquisite follows Gwendolyn from early girlhood into her adult life, showcasing her desire to write poetry from a very young age. This picture-book biography explores the intersections of race, gender, and the ubiquitous poverty of the Great Depression—all with a lyrical touch worthy of the subject. Gwendolyn Brooks was the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize, receiving the award for poetry in 1950. And in 1958, she was named the poet laureate of Illinois.

Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe (2016)

Winner of the Randolph Caldecott Medal and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Jean-Michel Basquiat and his unique, collage-style paintings rocketed to fame in the 1980s as a cultural phenomenon unlike anything the art world had ever seen. But before that, he was a little boy who saw art everywhere: in poetry books and museums, in games and in the words that we speak, and in the pulsing energy of New York City. Now, award-winning illustrator Javaka Steptoe's vivid text and bold artwork echoing Basquiat's own introduce young readers to the powerful message that art doesn't always have to be neat or clean—and definitely not inside the lines—to be beautiful.

[cloverdalebooks]

Watercress

Written by Andrea Wang, illustrated by Jason Chin 

Print book

Published March 30, 2021 by Neal Porter Books

Awards: Randolph Caldecott Medal (2022), Newbery Honor (2022), Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature (Picture Book, 2021-2022) 

Dimensions: 11.5 x 9 inches, 32 pages long 

Age range according to publisher: 6-9 years. I agree. While this is a picture book, some of the emotional material might be too heavy for younger children. 

After being required to help forage watercress from a roadside ditch, the daughter of Chinese immigrants is angry and embarrassed by the way her family’s differences make them stand out in small-town Ohio.

When the watercress is served at dinner that evening, the daughter initially refuses to eat it, prompting her mother to share how foraging to survive famine in China shaped their family history. 

Watercress is semi-autobiographical and the author’s note states that this story is about the power of memory. The text and illustrations indeed unite to provide the effect of a childhood memory. The illustrations are done in soft watercolors that lend a warm, memory-like quality to each scene. Definition and details are lightly rendered, so the landscape and background look gently textured. The poetic text fills in specific sensory and emotional details such as a rusty scissors, a wet shirt, and the flavor of watercress. The details in the text contrast with the softly-toned art, as if to express how some long-ago memories are more of an atmosphere with some specific details rising to the surface. 

This book could be a great selection for someone seeking materials on immigrant narratives, family history, and/or Chinese-American representation. 

Watercress is quite emotional and would also be good for readers seeking books that are more serious in nature. Its characters experience shame/embarrassment, family conflict, homesickness, famine, loss of a sibling, and wanting to belong. The famine and loss of a sibling might cause tears at bedtime if this is read in the evening, so caregivers should use their judgment.

Overall, Watercress stands out as a book that is layered, unique, and emotionally resonant.

[detroitlib]

Randolph Caldecott (22 March 1846 – 12 February 1886) 

English artist and illustrator. The Caldecott Medal was named in his honour. He exercised his art chiefly in book illustrations. Caldecott greatly influenced illustration of children's books during the nineteenth century.

Caldecott also illustrated novels and accounts of foreign travel, made humorous drawings depicting hunting and fashionable life, drew cartoons and he made sketches of the Houses of Parliament inside and out, and exhibited sculptures and paintings in oil and watercolour in the Royal Academy and galleries. (Wikipedia)

Sketchbook no. 44 of Randolph Caldecott. Bound volume contains drawings of human figures, vehicles, plant life, landscapes, seascapes and animal life. Includes studies of seaside scenes, a preliminary for Jackanapes, and several designs used in Breton folks. Title on tag attached to interior of volume: "R. Caldecott sketchbook, no. 44." Notes in pencil on several pages.

Courtesy of Rare Book Collection, Detroit Public Library

[nemfrog]

NEMFROG REPORT  A couple of hep cats

If you see something you want to reblog, please use the links. By the way, in case you don’t know, almost all Nemfrog posts include links back to the source. Usually if you click on the title you get back to the site of the archive where I found it. In older posts, click on the name of the source at the bottom of the post. If you want to make a TIL post about that, please do.

I found myself posting a lot of illustrations from nursery rhymes recently. It has something to do with the ethos of collecting. When you collect you don’t want just one of a set, you want as many of the set as you can get. You want the whole set. (I’m describing greed. I admit it.) Curating for me is collecting.

Nursery rhyme books have been a staple of publishing for over 200 years, which means that probably hundreds of illustration for just one little nonsensical but beloved ditty like Hey Diddle Diddle have been published over time. That means I can check out loads of the many versions, which is a kind of checking out I like to do. Multiply that by all the nursery rhyme books I can find and it adds up to a collector’s nirvana.

I cropped the image above, Tumblr’s favorite Nemfrog, this week and last, from the illustration that shows the rest of the cast of characters in the tale, below. The latch key of my book case, the source for this post, is a thick children’s book laced with dozens and dozens of uncredited illustrations, many of them delightful and many of them a bit too twee for Nemfrog.

If you don’t know the name Randolph Caldecott you might know about the Caldecott medal, one of the leading prizes for children’s books in English. Caldecott, who in the mid-19th century, opened up the boundaries of what was possible in children’s book illustration, painted the hep cat below, the fierce musician daring enough to use a violin like a bass, the one tethered to her bow.

From the wiki on Caldecott. “For Maurice Sendak "Caldecott's work heralds the beginning of the modern picture book. He devised an ingenious juxtaposition of picture and word, a counterpoint that never happened before. Words are left out—but the picture says it. Pictures are left out—but the word says it."

In all the other Mother Goose books I found, Hey Diddle Diddle, The Cat and Fiddle, merits a single illustration. Only Caldecott devotes several pages to his rendition of the absurdist narrative, in which he shows the cat as a musician so intent at her craft she closes her eyes for concentration. The artist presents her always in mid-stroke, variously, on two tables, a wall and a fireplace mantle.

By Randoph Caldecott, on the cover, eyes open. Very open.

The cat rocks on, perched on another table. This is the one you see above which  I cropped to post on Nemfrog a couple of weeks ago.  

Tied to the bow as ever, the cat gives a concert for some barnyard animals, including the cow that will soon fly over the moon. See the whole illustration. 

In the final and climactic illustration of the story, Caldecott doesn’t just show the dish and a pleasingly graceful spoon running off together, he imagines a happy chorus line of other kitchen items that foreshadows the inventions of movie cartoonists in the next century. And our cat? She’s leaped up on the mantle with her piece, to create the soundtrack for the whole crazy scene.

Come back to Nemfrog often for your daily supply of crazy scenes. By the way, if you like this jive, it wouldn’t be all that crazy to send some plata to el Nemfrog. Would it?

[jessicacbookblog]

Picturebook

Bibliographic Info

Creepy Carrots. Written by Aaron Reynolds. Illustrated by Peter Brown. Simon & Schuster. 2012.

Summary

A young bunny named Jasper Rabbit is haunted by the carrots that he always eats from Crackenhopper Field. He sees these carrots everywhere- even the bathroom! Eventually, Jasper Rabbit is so tired of the creepy carrots that he builds a giant fence to keep them all contained in Crackenhopper Field. 

Target Audience

This picturebook is best for readers and listeners between 5 and 8 years old. This age group will enjoy the humor of the story without being too afraid of those creepy carrots. 

Strengths

-The text and illustrations work really well together to build suspense and keep readers entertained.

- It has a great balance of spookiness and humor so young readers will get a small taste of the horror genre without being scarred for life. 

Creative Uses

- Use in a gardening or Halloween story time 

Awards

-Randolph Caldecott Medal (2013)

- Notable Children’s Books (2013)

Read Alikes

- Creepy Pair of Underwear. Written by Aaron Reynolds. Illustrated by Peter Brown. Simon & Schuster. 2017.

Jasper Rabbit is a big rabbit now with big rabbit underwear. He isn’t afraid of little bunny things like the dark and he definitely isn’t afraid of something as silly as his underwear… until they glow in the dark and he can’t seem to get rid of them.

-  Vlad the Rad. Written and illustrated by Brigette Barrager. Random House. 2019.

All of  his classmates at Miss Fussbucket’s School for Aspiring Spooks are focused on being scary, but all Vlad cares about is learning new tricks on his skateboard. Vlad has to find a way to be scary and an awesome skateboarder at the same time.

The Bad Seed. Written by Jory John. Illustrated by Pete Oswald. HarperCollins. 2017.

He’s a bad seed- he always cuts in line, he stares at people, he has a bad attitude. When the Bad Seed decides that he wants to be good, he discovers that even the baddest of seeds can change their ways

Image source: https://target.scene7.com/is/image/Target/GUEST_0913df1a-dc7c-4db0-89a2-268414209cad?wid=488&hei=488&fmt=pjpeg

[onlineantiques]

Original Watercolour by Randolph Caldecott of a Hunt Meeting EBay item number 224525200317 Randolph Caldecott was a British artist and illustrator, born in Chester. The Caldecott Medal was named in his honour. He exercised his art chiefly in book illustrations. His abilities as an artist were promptly and generously recognised by the Royal Academy. https://www.instagram.com/p/CZwBDRNok8s/?utm_medium=tumblr

[memoriallibrarytmc]

What's Here Wednesday: Caldecott Award Winners

Remember that shiny gold medal that you sometimes see on the cover of books? The Randolph Caldecott Medal is awarded annually to the best illustrator of the year! The winners and honor books represent the best of the best for illustrations, and encompass a wide variety of art styles.

Take a look at the guide for Caldecott Winners in the TMC for more information. There are also many of the honor books throughout the collection, too, so you can also run a search and see what you find!