and the Second Graders' Mock Caldecott Winner is...

After discussions... 

and evaluations...

the second graders cast their ballots.

Here's a peak at the scene:

The students needed to explain their voting in step 2:

It was time to tabulate the results:

become this chart:

OUR

WINNER is...

Sam & Dave Dig a Hole

With honors to:

Beekle

Draw

You can read more of the students comments about each book here:

On choosing a Mock Caldecott List

It's hard choosing a Mock Caldecott list. It's even harder if you are trying to do two things: expose students to a diverse group of illustrators and illustration styles and choose books that might have a chance of being recognized by one of the ALA Youth Media Awards.

In early November, my LibraryPals partner, Laura Given, and I created a loooong list of titles. Over a three week period we adjusted this list, relying on each other's reactions to a book if we hadn't had a chance to read it ourselves. We needed to come up with a final list of six titles because we knew we had four weeks to run the unit. Our plan was to pair two books each week and then vote on the fourth week. 

Here's what we wanted on our list:

**books illustrated by women

**books illustrated by people of color

**books representing the pluralistic society in which we live

**books illustrated with different media

**books that are fiction and nonfiction

We ended up with a good balance: Mock Caldecott 2015 List (Beekle, Draw, Sam & Dave, Right Word, Josephine**, and Viva Frida).  Not to read too much into it, but I was pleased to see that our six books were on yesterday's Horn Book's Calling Caldecott second ballot!

We ended up with a good balance...or so I thought.

My third graders registered their first round votes last Tuesday. 

My second graders voted yesterday. Their votes mirrored the third graders, but with more definitive results:

Not a woman was among the top three books. There was a flaw in our choices: all the women illustrated nonfiction books. We should have ensured that we had male and female illustrators of both the fiction and nonfiction.  

I also wonder if next year, we should choose only fiction books...OR...since, the three women illustrators, whose nonfiction books are fabulous, will likely win another award. Maybe next year, we should run a Sibert and a Caldecott? 

*pondering pondering pondering*

**There was a book change that needed to happen - Josephine was just too long for this process and would have required too much conversation, which we thought would take away from the focus on illustrations. It's a fabulous book, but not good for this unit.  We replaced it with Scraps by Lois Ehlert - wanting a nonfiction book and a book illustrated by a woman.

**We decided to not include titles by illustrators that we explored during the Mock Caldecott unit last year in an attempt to give the students a broader experience.

Looking forward to updating these ALA Award folders

One week from today, I'll be in a room in Chicago (with many other children's literature fanatics) to hear the announcements of the winners of the ALA Youth Media Awards.

From the ALA site:
"Each year the American Library Association honors books, videos, and other outstanding materials for children and teens. Recognized worldwide for the high quality they represent, the ALA Youth Media Awards, including the prestigious Newbery, Caldecott, Printz, and Coretta Scott King Book Awards, guide parents, educators, librarians, and others in selecting the best materials for youth. Selected by committees composed of librarians and other literature and media experts, the awards encourage original and creative work in the field of children’s and young adult literature and media.  The announcement of the 2015 Youth Media Awards will take place at 8:00 a.m. Central time on Monday, Feb. 2, 2015, during the ALA Midwinter Meeting & Exhibition in Chicago."

"Join us for a live webcast of the press conference or follow I Love Libraries on Twitter and Facebook to be among the first to know the 2015 winners. The official hashtag for the 2015 Youth Media Awards is  #ALAyma." 

I attended this event last year and am beyond excited to be able to repeat the experience. It's special. You can read (and hear) about this experience on this post, Midwinter Night's Dream.

Here are the folders I created and laminated:

Each one had a brief synopsis of the award:

Inside, I put the medal winners and honor books.

The students loved exploring these last year and have had fun revisiting these books since I put up the folders on January 5th. 

What titles will I be typing up in a week?

Mock Caldecott: Week 3: The vote before the vote...

We're cruising along with our 3rd Grade Mock Caldecott unit...

Week One: We reviewed the criteria and read This is Not My Hat, a previous Caldecott Medal winner.

Week Two: We read three books: The Right Word, Viva Frida, and Sam & Dave Dig a Hole.

Week Three (today): We read three books: The Scraps Book, Draw, and Beekle.

All well and good, and planned. What I didn't have planned was having the students evaluate and rank the books, that was supposed to be next week.

This morning, when I got to work, two things changed my plans:

I reflected on last year's Mock Caldecott and came to conclusion that I should capture the students' reactions to the books when the reactions were fresh.

I reflected on my experience as a Cybil's judge and how we began our group discussion with individual rankings.

With these two things in mind, I decided to shorten today's conversation and have the students evaluate all six books and then register a preliminary vote (1-3 ranking). 

Here's what I am most excited about...next week, the students will have thirty minutes to discuss the books relative the Caldecott criteria. After this discussion, the students will cast their final vote (ranking their top three books).  I am eager to hear their opinions. Will the students sway each other's thinking? We've got a great place to start our conversation:

Want to know how the books stacked up individually?