The Caldecott Medal is awarded each year to a children's book with outstanding illustrations. Here are my thoughts on some of the winning books from the last decade.
2007 Flotsam by David Wiesner
In this wordless fantasy, a boy is examining interesting debris on the beach when he finds an old camera. He develops the film at a one-hour photo shop and the pictures reveal a sereies of adventures in an underwater wonderland. He magnifies the picture of a child on the shore holding a photo and sees that the photo is of another child holding a photo, and the subject of each subsequent photo is from further back in time. He takes a picture of himself holding the photo and returns the camera to the sea, where it goes on further adventures and washes up at the feet of yet another child.
I love the pictures in this book. The underwater illustrations remind me of Animalia by Graeme Base, because they are the kind you can look at again and again and still notice new details. I normally do not like wordless books, but this one was exceptional, because the story line was well-developed and fanciful. I can see where it might be used as a writing prompt for students, but it is great just to enjoy it as a visual treat.
2006 The Hello, Goodbye Window by Norton Juster, illustrated by Chris Raschka
In this book, a little girl tells about the special window at her grandparents' house. Everything important that she loves about visiting her grandparents is associated with that window--the greetings, the comings and goings of the neighborhood, and the goodbyes. The illustrations are brightly colored and splashy, without too much detail, but what I like most about the book is the mood of exuberance that the pictures convey. If I didn't appreciate the energy and the mood so much, I might wish that the pictures were a little more tidy. Hopefully kids can identify with the strong family bond in this story. This girl has a very happy time at her grandparents' house, and that is something to celebrate!
2005 Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes
A kitten sees the full moon for the first time and mistakenly thinks it is a bowl of milk, which he pursues in vain. He finally arrives back at his own doorstep, wet and worn out, to find his own bowl of milk waiting for him.
If you didn't know that this book won the Caldecott in 2005, you might assume that it was a much older book, because the illustrations are black, white, and shades of gray. I don't have a problem with that, because Robert McCloskey is one of my favorite illustrators, and he wasn't big on color. These pictures are rather simplistic, but the expressions on the kitten's face are really endearing.
I am a big fan of Henkes' other books, such as Wemberley Worried and Chrysanthemum, but this one is so different from those that I would never have guessed that the author was the same. This book has a much more traditional look and feel, but I liked it, and so did my soon-to-be three year-old.
2004 The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein
This is a biographical picture book about a French man, Philippe Petit, who walked a tightrope between the World Trade Center Towers back in 1974. There is a strong sense of daring and adventure, because Petit was not supposed to be up there. In fact, he was arrested when he finished, but his sentence involved performing for children. The city scenes are in muted colors, which lends a calming effect to a very exciting story. I especially like the aerial views.
My favorite thing about the book is not the pictures, although they are wonderful, but the fact that the author chose to present a story that allows children to remember the World Trade Center as a place where something amazing and fun once happened, instead of just a place where tragedy struck. I'd like to read more of Gerstein's books.
2000 Joseph Had A Little Overcoat by Simms Taback
Taback adapted a traditional Yiddish song about a man who has an overcoat that becomes old and worn, so he makes it into something else. Die-cut peepholes show what the coat will become on the next page. The garments get progressively smaller until he's left with a button, which he loses. Then he writes a book about it, proving the moral that "you can always make something out of nothing." The text is very simple, but the message is powerful. The illustrations are an interesting mixture of watercolor, pencil, ink, Gouache, and collage. The style is very similar to his Caldecott Honor Book, There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly, which is also adapted from a traditional song. I especially like mixed-media illustrations, so I find Taback's books very appealing. I am glad that he has preserved these traditional songs in a fresh presentation for today's children.
