Next week, I’ll be asking the students in my Children’s Literature class to go to the library and find 10 Caldecott Medal or Honor books to read. In no particular order, here are ten of my favorites:
Smoky Night, written by Eve Bunting and illustrated by David Diaz
A Sick Day for Amos McGee, written by Philip C. Stead and illustrated by Erin E. Stead
Tar Beach, written and illustrated by Faith Ringgold
This Is Not My Hat, written and illustrated by Jon Klassen
Where the Wild Things Are, written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak
The Lion and the Mouse, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, written and illustrated by Marla Frazee
Henry’s Freedom Box, written by Ellen Levine and illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Officer Buckle and Gloria, written and illustrated by Peggy Rathmann
Journey, illustrated by Aaron Becker
the dirigible plum 
7 responses to “Top 10 Favorite Caldecott Winners”
Some of these are my favourites too. Love Tar Beach and The Lion and the Mouse. I wonder which titles your students will gravitate towards.
The Caldecott list is really a superb collection. I was going to just turn them loose in the library the first week (that’s what I usually do) but then several students always end up checking out a whole bunch of books that really disappoint them and they don’t understand why in the world I’m so excited about PBs. Focusing on the Caldecott will hopefully hook them right away! They’ll be blogging about the Caldecotts they chose on Aug 25–I’m sure I’ll share some of their posts via Twitter. It was definitely hard to limit myself to just 10! My initial brainstorm shortlist had 20+ titles–and that was just off the top of my head!
Journey and A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever are two of my kids’ favorite books. I’ve never read Tar Beach so I’m going to put it on hold at my library.
Tar Beach is gorgeous! Love how quilts feature in Ringgold’s work. Let me know if you like it.
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I love “This is not my hat”! I got it for Owen for his birthday this year, although he won’t let me read it to him yet. He likes to see his own life reflected in a book, so I’m thinking the hat angle is the way to get him to pay attention to it, since he is fond of a fedora. It’s such a great book though and it makes me giggle each time I read it.
Right now Owen is most enthusiastic about the Maisy books–they are the right amount of text for him.
Looking forward to reading several of these for class!