Battle Fatigue - Mock Caldecott Group End of Week Six

A number of events converged to make this an interesting week for our participants. Our district had an in-service day which meant that few of us were in our regular spots. For many of us that meant one less day to get our reviews done.

Many of us have succumbed to the nasty chest cold we are sharing. That didn’t exactly help our ability to review this week’s quota of books.

But most difficult of all was the closing of grades for the semester. Correcting papers, calculating grades and posting them will take priority for the next week. That makes it really tough to stay on top of reviewing for all but the most die-hard children’s lit enthusiasts.

When we started the group people clustered together, sharing their thoughts as they went. Looking for inspiration, validation and ideas. This week I saw a big shift. A number of people sought to do their books in isolation. It seems that some people have gotten beyond the honeymoon stage of uncertainty and the need for approval. They now have built the confidence that their ability is up to the task. Blocking out distraction in order to get the task done with precision and speed is more the issue at this point.

Those who do stop by to swap opinions will never find me short of the interest in discussion. Still, I’m excited by how people who weren’t confident at first are quite able to do their own assessments and apologize to no one for their opinions.

Having said that, there are certainly feelings of overwhelm and panic. How will we meet the goal in the time we have? I don’t know, but it will all be learning. I continue to find new books I want to view. It’s all practice.

I think about next year and hope that I will be fortunate enough to do this again. If so, I think there are some things I can do to make this process easier.

1.     Start recording the books from which to select from the reviews from the first review source in January. That will make this process much easier to keep up with. I didn’t start a spreadsheet until August this year giving me too much to catch up with.

2.     Even if I am going to offer this in the fall season, I think it would be best for me to review as many as I can in the spring and (here comes the key point) eliminate the obvious books. I have more motivation for this project than my participants need to have and so I will review many more books. Give them the higher end of the scale. When some of the book arrived it was very obvious that they would not be contenders. Perfectly appropriate in another context, but not one we would need to review.

3.     Vet the books we will review more carefully to make sure that the illustrators of each book qualify for the medal.

4.     Be more clear about what the expectations on the review forms are. Some people felt they had to write volumes for each book. That was more than I would expect.

5.     Readjust the target for how long it takes to review a book. It takes longer than I believed it would. 

Kids do Caldecott

Every year around this time I introduce my kindergarten classes to the Caldecott Medal. The introduction includes my drawing a representation on the whiteboard, detailing all the elements on the medal and then quizzing them on each element and how many items of each there are. It's always amazing to see how much they pay attention and retain. Later when they pick out their books they can't control their excitement when they find a book with the medal on the front.

About a week later I do a review in which I ask them to tell me all about the medal using leading questions. This week when I asked the name of the medal, two students gave me answers which made me squeal with delight. One student told me it is called the "Caldegold" Medal. He remembered the beginning and the color of the Medal winner. The other student told me that it was called the "Medalcott" which I found equally entrancing. It is amazing that they can remember the name at all, but hearing how they are connecting this medal to the words they know is inspiring.

Later when I asked who gets the medal one student jumped up yelling "I know. It's the punisher." I had to explain that another Medal, the Batchelder Medal, goes to the publisher, but the Caldecott goes to the illustrator.

Finally, when I tried to trick them by showing a book with a Theodore Seuss Geisel Award on the front one student said "Hey, that's not the Caldecott. There's just an old guy on it."

November Writing Challenges

It's almost November, the month of the dueling creative challenges. It is also, the month that I am already overbooked. So I am currently thinking about what I am going to commit to this November and hoping I can spread the word about the opportunities for fun and creating coming up.

Last year I first heard about NaNoWriMo on November 5th through Paula Yoo's blog. I signed up and had truly transformative experience writing my first novel. It has changed not only the way I look at myself, but also has enhanced my practice as a librarian and teacher. All I can say is, if you ever thought about writing a novel, this is a fun, supportive atmosphere to do it in.

If you are a young person, a teacher of young people or a parent of a young person you might want to look at their Young Writers Program. That area of the website has tighter controls. While young writers can friend each other, they cannot friend adults nor can adults friend them. Young writers get to set their own goals and they have a list for reference of suggested word count goals per age. The manual for this program is very helpful. I have read parts of it to get my mind working.

Artists may find their own place in the 30 book covers in 30 days challenge through NaNoWriMo.

Tara Lazar has started an event called PiBoIdMo for writers of picture books. The premise of Picture Book Idea Month is to come up with a solid idea for a picture book every day for 30 days. Pair this event with Paula Yoo's NaPiBoWriWee (National Picture Book Writing Week) in the first week in May to actually develop and finish off seven of the ideas you gather through Tara Lazar's event.

Whether you are a novelist, a picture book writer or an artist, there are plenty of challenges out there.

But you said…!

A couple of days ago, one of my colleagues came to me with a book and a smile and said “I’ll bet you hated this book.” I literally took a step back in surprise. It was one of my top choices – a book I had found visually powerful. She found the pictures cartoony. I looked at the visual environment the artist had created. She saw where the artist had failed in proportion. I dismissed this aspect as of little concern given the strength of the other elements. That’s when she got really frustrated and “But you said…” and quoted my words about a book she had loved which left me lukewarm. Now it was my turn to be really shocked. And humbled.

One of the enlightening things she said to me was “So you had a strong emotional response to this book the way I did with the other one.” It gave me several things to think about.

1. Was my positive response to one book an emotional response? Really? I truly thought it was the visual experience that swayed me. I’m going to go back and revisit this.

      2.Could it be that it was an emotional response that made me like, but not LOVE the other book. I liked it, I just didn’t think it was worthy of a Caldecott Medal. 

      

      3. I have noticed that many of us seem to be swayed by our ties to the content. I notice that books with dogs in them elicit strong positive responses to those who have dogs even when they are not particularly well done. It is as if their hearts are filling in the details the illustrator left out. Not a dog owner myself, I find it easier to separate the successful dog illustrations from the mediocre. Where my own failing lies will be harder for me to discover. 

      4. It is clear to me that I need to do further reading and study to help inform my reactions to what I am seeing. I have learned a great deal from this process, but I still have much to learn. 

      5. How exciting it is to have more to learn! This process of being reading, forming opinions, sharing them, revising them and coming to a new understanding is something I find endlessly interesting. To have developed this group of people who will do this with me is a blessing.

No Parking Here

When I think of the pace of the folks serving on the actual Caldecott Medal Committee one word comes to mind "relentless.What we are doing in our Mock Committee is a drop in the bucket.

We have finished week three. This is the week it became real to many of our group. The week they stopped saying "We just started", "I'll catch up" or "The first few will take more time." and launched into the common refrain "How will I ever catch up?" All of us are trying to fit in our book evaluations between other things - the classes we teach, breakfast, lunch and after school appointments. This is the week I started hearing people wondering if they would finish...if they could.

While I think the number of weeks into the process would probably be different for those serving on The Committee, I'm sure the same thing happens at some point. We started in September with a limited number to finish each week. I supply, store and manage the books. I imagine that the committee members have an unlimited number of books coming, no clear number of how many they will need to look at so no ability to know if they are on task or not and they need to find a storage solution on their own. Finding room for the books is a challenge in itself.

I have a crew who come in before school each day. Another group who arrive at lunch and some who come long after I've headed to the public library o exchange the books. I know at least one of our participants is enjoying ordering them through interlibrary loan so that she can look at them at her own pace.

The message this week is clear - No Parking Here. If you don't keep up, it will be hard to catch up.

2 weeks

Two weeks have passed in our Mock Caldecott Medal Committee focus group.  Each day brings new insight. 

Parts of the process which our participants have difficult with:

1.     Sticking to the parameters of the medal. I often hear a teacher say “I love this book, but our kids won’t get it.” At first I jumped in with “Remember, the parameters of the medal. Books for ages birth to 14 are to be considered.” Now I wait and within a few minutes they tend to remind themselves.

2.     Sticking to the parameters of the medal. It’s hard for teachers to remember that the Caldecott Medal is for the illustrations.

3.     Being vulnerable. Looking at the books is a joy. Committing your opinions to paper is another thing. Like our students, we are afraid of being wrong. I keep reminding our participants that this is a process. It is ok to be wrong. We all have to start somewhere. My suggestion is that they enjoy the book. Then pull out the list of things to look for and find one. What they learn to see will expand each time they do this.

4.     Being right. Some of the participants have told me they don’t know much about this and then have turned around and amazed me. They know more about some types of art and art criticism than I do. They just aren’t sure that they are applying their knowledge “correctly”.

5.     

M Making decisions. How are we ever going to choose? While a few of us have clear favorites, there are others who love every book and cannot imagine choosing one. Life is tough. We’ll do it somehow. When someone gets into this frazzled state of mind I like to hand them a book which I’m pretty sure they won’t like. It breaks the cycle and gives them a breather.

6.      Making the distinction between “what I like” and “what is distinguished”. Many people have told me they didn’t have a book high on their list because they didn’t like the story – it was too sad, boring, didn’t have a happy ending, wasn’t a subject they were interested in, etc. It’s hard to put that aside and look at the illustrations for their effectiveness in portraying a story if you don’t like the story.

Can’t hold it in

Last week a member of our school community came to me and told me how much she wished she could have joined our Caldecott Adventure. A prior commitment made joining impossible.

Her observation was that everywhere she went she heard someone talking about the books. Talking with passion.  She felt she was missing something of value and missing on that sense of sharing.

She laughed as she related seeing a teacher walking down the hallway and another teacher bursting out of her room asking her if she had read “A Bedtime for Bear” yet. It was impossible to hold in the excitement about the book.

I laughed when I heard that, because that book is creating quite a stir among our members. Not a single person who read that title in the library was able to quietly record their observations and move on. They all felt they had to share it with someone, talk over all the funny details that made it sing to them and to create a connection. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is one of the ones nominated by our group for the first cut. 

What is remarkable, however, is how picture books are taking over our conversation. There is no time to waste on petty things - there are books to be discussed.