A Caldecott Celebration              

by Leonard S. Marcus

Bibliography

Marcus, L. S. (2008). A caldecott celebration : Seven artists and their paths to the caldecott medal (2008 ed.). New York: Walker & Co.  ISBN 0802797032

Plot Summary

Originally published in 1998 to celebrate the first six decades of the Caldecott Medal, the new 2008 edition is updated to include an additional representative from the past 10 years.  Marcus does not provide a critical analysis of any of the seven books in his work, rather he tells the story behind the story.  This book shares with the reader the author’s journey, often even how he came to write and illustrate for children.  It also describes how each included story came into being, from conception through winning the prize.  The illustrators profiled are Robert McCloskey, Marcia Brown, Maurice Sendak, William Steig, Chris Van Allsburg, David Wiesner and Mordacai Gerstein.  A glossary, proper noun index and a list of all the Caldecott Medal winners through 2007 are included at the end of the book.

Critical Analysis

When you pick up this thin book and look at the seven illustrations on the cover, you may find yourself thinking you would have picked different books to represent the decades.  You would be joining the debate that rages each year after the selection of the book that wins the Caldecott Medal.  Once you open the cover and read about any one of the artists, you will find yourself delighted with the story and thinking that its inclusion makes perfect sense.  Marcus tells the stories clearly, while combining drama and history in such a way that older children and adults will find joy, whether reading one story at a time or the whole book in one sitting. 

Each winning book is represented by several samples of the art for which it won the prize, and even more interesting, samples of the dummy or study pieces that each artist used in creating the finished products.  The best thing about the book is that it makes both young and old want to read or reread the books profiled, plus everything else available by these enormously talented illustrators.

Review Excerpts

*Publishers Weekly (starred review), "Filled with witty anecdotes and pithy observations . . ."

*Booklist (starred review), "A beautifully made book."

*The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, “Eminently satisfying."

Connections

*If you are using picture storybooks with older students to study literary elements, sharing the journey behind the book will be very satisfying to your students.

* My 12 year old son throughly enjoyed reading this book.  He liked recalling which of the books he had read, when he read them and whether they were library books or if we still owned them.  We had a delightful trip down memory lane.

*Selected  bibliography of Leonard Marcus:

Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children's Literature.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, May 2008.

 

Golden Legacy: How Golden Books Won Children's Hearts, Changed Publishing Forever, and Became an American Icon Along the Way. New York: Random House, September 2007.

Pass It Down: Five Picture-Book Families Make Their Mark. New York: Walker and Company, January 2007.

Side By Side: Five Favorite Picture-Book Teams Go To Work. (paperback edition). New York: Walker and Company, January 2007.

The Making of Goodnight Moon: A Fiftieth Anniversary Retrospective. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.