Voting day was amazing!
The votes were counted
and tallied
and the Grade One favorites were:
This is the order I read the book with the students. Does proximity to voting day affect votes? I wonder. Were this the real committee, long discussions would ensue, but this is school and onward we must move, so we'll call it here with Journey winning the medal and The Dark and Mr. Tiger Goes Wild getting honors (no small accomplishment!).
And the Grade Two favorites were:
What did the students have to say about their number one choices?
Mr. Tiger Goes Wild
Journey
The Dark
Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors?
About the process
Here's the thing, I am feeling conflicted.
I feel a bit like my process is flawed.
I left off some books by authors and illustrators of color because I figured they would get recognized by other awards (there's a whole blog post about this coming soon).
I had too many wordless books.
Why didn't Flora and the Flamingo get more love? I adore this book. The students noticed and appreciated the subtleties of the illustrations and read the relationship so well - they picked right up on Flamingo yelling or laughing at Flora and then realizing the mistake.
My students and I noticed an odd bit of shading on Inside Outside. Was it purposeful? Can the real committee ask a publisher that?
I wish I had balanced the list more in terms of style of illustrations.
I wish I could begin again.
Then I sit back and absorb all this angst and remind myself that the real goal of this unit is to celebrate children's literature, specifically picture books. The other main learning goal of this unit is to encourage my students to read critically - to think about what they like and don't like, what works and doesn't work, and to understand what goes into the creation of a picture book. In this regard, I hope I have succeeded!
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