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Newbery and Caldecott Children's Book Awards--Peter Allphin

1.      John Newbery Medal – The John Newbery Medal was the very first award ever made for children’s books, it goes all the way back to 1921! It was created because back then there were no awards at all for children’s books, and the American Library Association wanted an award that would encourage the very best writers to write children’s books (most of them didn’t want to write those at the time). They named it after John Newbery because he was the very first book publisher to focus on making children’s books (and he was really good at it too). It’s given out every year to the very best children’s book written that year, and there can only be one winner each year (but they do have Newbery Honor awards for finalists that don’t win). To win, you have to follow a few rules, but they’re not too hard. First, you have to live in the United States. Second, your book can’t be only pictures, the Newbery is awarded to a book based on the words (and it has to be in English). Third, your book has to be your own work, not someone else’s. Last, your book has to be the very best book written (for children) for that entire year. There are no other rules than that, winners can be about anything, fiction or non-fiction, and any book that follows these rules can be nominated.

a.      How to Recognize Winners – Newbery winners almost always have a gold medal on the cover with the words “John Newbery Medal” on the top. It’s usually pretty big, because winning it is a big deal! At the Martinsburg Public Library, we also have stickers on the edges of the book that will tell you if a book is a winner, so you can tell just by looking at the book on the shelf! Plus, the Newbery is the most famous of all the book awards, so if you can’t tell if a book is a winner, any librarian will be able to tell you. To get you started, there’s one example of a Newbery winner right below this sentence:

O’Brien, Robert C. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. New York: Atheneum, 1971. 223 pages, age 8 and up.

Humans are very big, so it’s easy for us to do many things. But the life of a mouse is not so easy. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH tells the story of Mrs. Frisby, who just so happens to be a mouse with a problem. Her husband died before the story begins, so she is alone with only her children, who depend on her to take care of them. Every year, they leave their home in a farmer’s field before he plows it up during the summer, but this year they can’t move because Timothy, Mrs. Frisby’s smallest child, is so sick that he can’t leave the house. But if they stay, their house will be destroyed with them in it! With nowhere left to turn for help, Mrs. Frisby goes to the strange group of rats that live under a rose bush nearby. The rats (who turn out to be smarter than most people) agree to help her, but they need her help too. They’ve been drawing too much attention to themselves, and need her help to escape to a place where humans will never find them. Soon Mrs. Frisby, not a brave mouse (or so she thinks) finds herself flying on the back of a crow, talking to owls (who love mice for dinner!) and even slipping sleeping powder into a ferocious cat's dinner dish! But is there enough time before the farmer’s plow destroys Mrs. Frisby’s home? Emile Coulter says “O'Brien's incredible tale, along with Zena Bernstein's appealing ink drawings, ensures that readers will never again look at alley rats and field mice in the same way.”

2.      Caldecott Medal – The Caldecott Medal is just as famous as the John Newbery Medal, but there’s a big difference between them. The Newbery is awarded to a book based on how good its story is, but the Caldecott is awarded to a book based on how good its pictures are. Before the Caldecott medal, there were no awards for the people who make the pictures for books, and the America Library Association didn’t think that was fair. So, they created an award named after the (very famous) book artist Randolph Caldecott (who lived in the 1800s), and made sure that only artists could win it. They hoped that this would encourage artists to make pictures for children’s books, just like the Newbery Medal encouraged writers to write children’s books, and it worked! The award (and some second place prizes) has been given out every year since 1937 to the book published that year that follows a few rules. First, the book has to be in English, and it has to be printed in the United States (and you have to live in the United States too). Second, to win the Caldecott Medal the drawings in your book have to be your own work, and the drawings have to be easy for kids to understand. Last, the pictures have to be good (of course) and match the story of the book really, really well. If the pictures aren’t a good match for the story, then you don’t win. This can be very difficult sometimes, but other times some artists have created winning books that don’t have any words and only tell their story through pictures!

1. How To Recognize Winners – This one is easy; Caldecott winners have a big gold sticker on the cover, just like that picture up there. It looks a little like the Newbery Medal (they are both gold), but the Caldecott Medal has a picture of a man on a running horse, not a picture of a book like the Newbery. We make it even easier at the Martinsburg Public Library; every Caldecott winner has a green sticker on the edge, so you can see it even if it’s squished on the shelf!

Wiesner, David. Tuesday. New York: Clarion Books, 1991. No page numbers, ages 3 and up.

This sentence has more words than all of Tuesday, by David Wiesner. In fact, there are no words in Tuesday at all. None. Zero. No words. Instead, Wiesner (who has won three Caldecott Medals, only the second person to ever do that), tells his story only with pictures, and what a weird story! It starts out on a regular Tuesday night out by a pond. A bunch of frogs are sitting quietly. Suddenly, they start floating! Then they start flying! What’s going on? Follow the frogs as they explore a nearby town (and scare a bunch of people who have never seen flying frogs before), and see if you can figure it out!