Thursday, February 25, 2016

2016 Caldecott Award Winner


The Caldecott Award is given annual to the most distinguished artist of a picture book for children.  A distinguished artist will create pictures that add to the story and help to move the story along, they can't just be good pictures.

The Caldecott Award is named after 19th century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott who began illustrating different Mother Goose Rhymes.  His work and creativity have inspired illustrators from generation to generation.

The 2016 Caldecott Award goes to Sophie Blackall for her illustration in Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear  by Lindsay Mattick. Check out the book trailer for a good synopsis of the book



In the story Blackall creates beautiful detailed pictures that dominate the page.  In essence her illustrations are the backdrop to the story.  The books starts with a picture of a mother and her son lying in bed, telling a bedtime story.  Then the pictures begin to tell the story of veterinarian Harry Colebourn, but on each page there is a small snippet of a picture of the mother and son still lying in bed.  The pictures of Harry's story are beautiful and telling.  They perfectly depict the time period and the emotions of Harry.  You can see the anger on the Colonel's face and the shock on the other soldier's faces when Harry brings Winnie the bear with him.  You can see just how close Winne and Harry are when you see them sleeping together in Harry's tent.  When it is time for Winnie and Harry to part ways Blackall sweetly shows the sadness in their face with a picture of Harry and Winnie's foreheads touching.  My three year old loved this book, not just for the story, but I think more for the pictures.  The entire time we were reading he was pointing things out in the pictures, which helped him to understand the story better (because we know young children understand the pictures better first!)

The end of the book is filled with photographs of Harry's journal pages and pictures of Harry and Winnie.

Happy Reading!
Laura

2016 Caldecott Award Honors


Trombone Shorty illustrated by Bryan Collier
Waiting illustrated by Kevin Henkes
Voice of Freedom illustrated by Ekua Holmes
Last Stop on Market Street illustrated by Christian Robinson




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