Aren't you hosting a Caldecott Challenge?

Yes, I am co-hosting a Caldecott Challenge to read all the Caldecott medal and honor books.
So far I have read all the titles from 1938-1949.

After that (around the beginning of February) I had some sort of reading challenge breakdown, and I fell into a challenge reading rut.
I couldn't bring myself to open the next title on my challenge list.

Part of what happened reminds me of a Saturday Night Live skit from 1990 called "The Gross Out Family".

In the skit, a family is sitting down to dinner and the dad (Tom Hanks) tries some milk, realizes it is spoiled and then the rest of the family proceeds to say things like "Oh, let me try... belch, you are right that IS rancid!"

"How old is that milk, it is really bad!"

"You aren't kidding!"

"Let me try.... Whoa, baby!"

"Here let me try...Whoa that's bad!"

It goes on with smelling bad fish, feeling Chris Farley's sweaty stomach, sitting on a nail and finally ends with the family members each throwing themselves down the stairs.
(If you have Hulu plus, you can watch the whole SNL episode here.)

There have been a few #nerdcott conversation threads on twitter that have felt like we've been "passing the milk".
"This was meant for kids?"
"These books really make me appreciate today's picture books so much more!"
"They're just soooo wordy!"

Ok... I'm not really trying to say that the 1940s Caldecott medal and honor books are like drinking rancid milk - there have been some gems in the mix that have truly stood out, but for the most part they did require a different kind of reading energy than the titles I have been reading during my recent "challenge break down" phase.

These recent reads have been helping me to build up my reading mojo again.
I needed them.

I needed to read and get lost in a story.
I needed to fall in love with characters.
I needed to feel that crazy excitement at having just read my "new favorite book."
I needed to remember why I love reading.

So I had a Challenge break down and read...

The Mighty Miss Malone

The One and Only Ivan

Hidden

Anna Hibiscus and No. 1 Car Spotter

A Long Walk to Water

The Fault in Our Stars

Wonder

If there is an opposite of rancid milk, these books are it!
With these awesome reads that fed my soul I think I have almost built up my Challenge stamina again and should be ready with a Caldecott book stack for the 1950s very soon.

Thank you for hanging with me through this challenge breakdown, and thanks to the challenge participants who have been blogging and tweeting through my rut. Your posts have been boosting my strength and luring me back.

Click on the links below to see fabulous Caldecott Challenge posts from...

A to Z Library (my wonderful co-host)

Story Time Secrets

Not For Lunch

Picture Book A Day

Gathering Books

Fascinating Librarian Blogs

I recently received an email saying that my blog was nominated for a Fascinating Librarian Blog award based on my posts about the Caldecott Reading Challenge.

What I find fascinating are the many other wonderful blogs in this list of nominees, like:

• MrSchuReads.blogspot.com
• MsYinglingReads.blogspot.com
• VanmeterLibraryVoice.blogspot.com

and so many others...


Voting for the most fascinating blog happens here until March 06, 2012 (11:59 PM EST).
I copied and pasted a list of all the nominees (from the online voting form) into a spreadsheet with links here. 


I hope you will find perusing this list of blogs as fascinating as I have.

Toby Martin Mystery Series by Barbara Grengs

Let me introduce Barbara Grengs, English teacher extraordinaire (at my school!)...

Barbara at last week's school book fair.

... and the author of the Toby Martin middle grade mystery series.

Barbara reading from the first chapter of Toby Martin Pet Detective at Red Balloon Bookshop (May, 2010)

We are so lucky we get to call Barbara our "Resident Author", and I am excited for the next installment of Toby Martin's sleuthing to be set at the Minnesota State Fair.

Find out more about Barbara and the Toby Martin series here:
http://www.barbaragrengs.com/

6 things I love about Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett

Some of you know my alter ego, the knitter Orinda5.

So it probably comes as no surprise that Extra Yarn, a picture book about knitting, is a new favorite of mine.

Extra Yarn

Written by Mac Barnett

Illustrated by Jon Klassen

6 things that make me absolutely giddy about Extra Yarn 

(Why 6 and not 5? I just had to say one of the things twice!)

1. Extra Yarn is an awesome picture book about knitting!

2. Annabelle, the main character, has a magical box that never runs out of yarn.

3. Annabelle is never discouraged when others mock her love of knitting or knitted items, in fact she just considers it an invitation to knit for them.

4. Annabelle "yarn bombs" pretty much everything she sees.

5. The cameo appearances by Bear and Rabbit from I Want My Hat Back.

6. Ummm.... did I mention it's an awesome picture book about KNITTING!!!

The only thing that could make it any better, would be a cute book trailer to close this post. 

Instead I will leave you with another favorite, a music video from U900 with a crocheted bear and rabbit (see the connections!). 

Whew! First Decade Down

Caldecott Challenge Total so far: 56 Caldecotts Read (not counting those I read before starting the challenge).

At this point I have read all the Award Winners and Honor books through the first decade of the award to the end of the 1940s.

I have to say, I am a little tired of picture book pages that look like this:

and this:

and this:

At times it is hard to believe that these picture books won the same award that these did on January 23.

I sorted through my goodreads shelf of Caldecott Challenge titles by rating to see what floated to the top from these early winners, and there were three clear favorites for me:

The Little House

by Virginia Lee Burton

Caldecott Medal (1943)

I remember my elementary school librarian reading this one.
I love the facial expressions on the house, and how the text is not in plain blocks, but more free form on the pages. I also love that it is a circle story with big circles on the front and back cover.

Make Way for Ducklings

by Robert McCloskey 

Caldecott Medal (1942)

I love the sweet realistic ducks, and the list of rhyming baby duck names always makes me smile.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

by Wanda Gág

Caldecott Honor (1939)

Ok, this one does have a lot of text, but I am a huge fan of Wanda Gág and fairy tales.

I love her quirky sense of humor. 

Her pen and ink drawings always pull me in. 

AND she is from Minnesota!

I was really excited to find out that the University of Minnesota Press has reprinted this book and a few other collected tales from Grimm.

My small Wanda Gag Print

What are your favorite Caldecott winner and honor books?

Have you posted about the Caldecott Challenge, link up below.

Interested in joining us on the Caldecott Medal and Honor Book Reading Challenge? Find out more here.

Sing Mother Goose & Sing in Praise

I have been surprised by the amount of music in the early Caldecott winner and honor books. There have been many stories that include a song or two as part of the book, like... Juanita by Leo Politi (Caldecott Honor 1949)

However Sing Mother Goose (Caldecott honor 1946) and Songs of Praise (Caldecott honor 1947) both by Opal Wheeler and illustrated by Marjorie Torrey don't have just one or two songs - they are illustrated collections of music.
See the video below for a closer look.

 For me the strength of the illustrations in these two books is the color palette and the rich feel on the full color pages. 

On Wednesday nights we head over to my In-Laws' for Family Dinner Night. Cupcake likes to sing at the piano with grandma. Her favorite song is "One Foot Other Foot" from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Allegro" - mostly because it has a baby in the illustrations on that page, but she was ok with trying a few selections from Sing Mother Goose this past Wednesday.
(Sorry for the sound quality - I like to record "stress-free" style using my phone.)





After Cupcake lost interest and went to find out what the older cousins were up to downstairs (Wii Resort Sports, just in case you were wondering about the background noise in the video above), my Mother-In-Law played a piece from Songs of Praise.  
Notice the much more interesting looking "Songs We Sing", a collection of show tunes by Rodgers and Hammerstein from 1957.





Another plug for my awesome Mother-In-Law who is a fabulous person and blogs at HomesMSP about real estate and the Minneapolis/St Paul area.


Each Wednesday in a feature called Wednesdays Unplugged she posts about our family and a recipe from our weekly family dinner night.



Interested in joining us on the Caldecott Medal and Honor Book Reading Challenge? Find out more here.

I'm a Chair!

A dream I have been working toward (for what feels like a long time now) came true yesterday when the executive board of the Minnesota Youth Reading Awards voted to start a new Children's Choice Picture Book Award.

For the past 30 years, MN has had a wonderful Children's Choice award for Novels - the Maud Hart Lovelace Award, but not one for picture books.

The following order of business at the meeting was to vote me in as the chair of this new award!
I still want to squeal a little bit each time I think about it.

I am thrilled and honored to be leading the creating and shaping of this new award for Minnesota.

This next year will be a lot of work behind the scenes with nominees announced for participants in April of 2013.

Would YOU like to be a part of this new Minnesota award?
Over the next few months we will be looking for Representatives from around the state who would like to provide input on the potential nominees. If this sounds right up your alley, click here.