My 2015 Caldecott Quandary by Jim Hill

It has been a fantastic, groundbreaking awards season for graphic novels. El Deafo was named a Newbery Honor, and This One Summer earned both a Printz Honor and a Caldecott Honor.

*Record scratch*

Wait, what? There’s a book that can get both a Printz–the YA award–and a Caldecott? The Caldecott? The one for picture books? For little kids? You’re seriously telling me this? Shut up.

Right? I thought the same thing. I hadn’t yet read This One Summer when the awards were announced. I had seen the cover, and thumbed through it at the bookstore, so I knew it to be a beautifully illustrated book. As soon as the snow stopped and the libraries opened again (hash tag snowmageddon), I got my hands on it.

The illustrations are fantastic. Evocative, well paced with an artful use of splash pages that break out of the panel format to mark chapter endings and important story points. It’s blue–a choice made in production by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki that, in my opinion, elevates the art and the emotional stakes while at the same time softening a sometimes difficult story by providing a little psychic distance for the reader. Blue is a calming color after all. It’s also entirely appropriate as it relates to the setting at Awago Beach, and the importance that water plays in the story.

So why don’t I love the idea that it received a Caldecott Honor? Age range and subject matter.

Let me try to explain. Um, justify. Er, rationalize. Crap, this is awkward.

The material in this book is not easy stuff. It’s a coming of age story that deals with newfound sexual desire, teen pregnancy, infertility/miscarriage, parental disharmony, and even touches on class/socio-economic issues.

So, first let me say, holy cow, well done Jillian and Mariko. This is great stuff, handled authentically, honestly, and experienced deftly through the eyes of the main character.

Slap two Printz awards on the cover, and call it a day. I am all in.

But the Caldecott? You’re killing me.

To me, and I’m willing to bet to most people, the Caldecott is the picture book award. I fear there will be censorship/banning discussions fueled by parents who are upset that this material landed in their children's hands by virtue of a sticker. One look at the negative Amazon reviews reveals exactly that. What boggles my mind about those negative reviews is the objection to language, not subject matter. But that’s an argument for another day–tentative title, “What’s Wrong with You? Words Are Not the Problem, You’re the Problem.” But I digress.

Technically, This One Summer totally qualifies for the Caldecott Honor. But emotionally? Instinctually? I think the committee misstepped.

Yes, the Caldecott's second criteria says, "A ‘picture book for children’ is one for which children are an intended potential audience. The book displays respect for children’s understandings, abilities, and appreciations. Children are defined as persons of ages up to and including fourteen and picture books for this entire age range are to be considered." But has there ever been one recognized that pushes that upper limit so hard?

Parents, teachers, and librarians are confused. That doesn’t help the credibility of the award. The negative Amazon reviews and this post (with subsequent discussion in the comments) on the Hornbook blog illuminate the issue nicely.

I don’t know. On the one hand, I am over the moon that graphic novels are getting attention, sales, and shiny award stickers. Cartoonist Dani Jones might have said it best on twitter:

In my wildest dreams of winning an Eisner, Caldecott, or Newbury, I thought I had to master 3 disciplines. Turns out I can just make comics.
— Dani Jones (@danidraws) February 2, 2015

And Matthew Winner, of the excellent Let’s Get Busy podcast, nails the reason we should all read El Deafo in his Washington Post op/ed piece.

Graphic novels matter. This is great. In an online discussion with alums and students of VCFA about this issue, it was suggested that maybe it's time for a specific graphic novel award. Not to eliminate graphic novels from contention for other awards, but to shine a light on them alone. Skip age ratings–that’s a big ol’ can of worms that almost no one can come to consensus on, but celebrate the writing, the art, and the storytelling for what it is by virtue of its unique format.

David Elzey suggested an excellent name for it: The PILKEY YANG award (for Dav Pilkey, Gene Luen Yang, naturally). Sounds good to me.

My thanks to that secret board of VCFA’ers for helping me clarify my thoughts, and a special shout out to Robin Herrara for rightfully turning me around on my second (undisclosed) problem with this award for This One Summer.

Do yourself a favor–read the book and make up your own mind.

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PICTURES AND THE STORIES THEY TELL by Eden Unger Bowditch

Words on the page give the reader a map. Pictures leave an impression- and artist’s impression- that become part of the book experience. Fabulous artwork can bring great things to a story. Art can have a life of its own in a book. Those two things can sometimes have very different effects on the reader.

Mary Grace Corpus and Jason Wiliford were the artists who did the illustrations in The Young Inventors Guild books. (Jason Wiliford did the chapter head sketches for The Atomic Weight of Secrets… and Mary Grace did the chapter head illustrations, as well as the blueprints for the inventions, in The Ravens of Solemano...) Each sketch has so much power, hinting at what will come in the pages ahead. The blueprints are crafted beautifully and offer a living schematic, something that only adds to whatever images are already dancing in the heads of readers.

Sometimes, though, the art breaks the spell and interferes. Sometimes, the artwork and the story are out of sync. We’ve all read books that are vastly different from whatever the illustrator (who clearly did not read the book manuscript) provided.

In Egypt, the artwork for locally produced kids’ books is due for an overhaul. Retro is one thing. Out-of-date design is another. Some of the art used in children’s books hasn’t changed for decades and was never attended to seriously. It feels like there may be only one or two working illustrators in the country and they learned their craft in the 50s.  Many modern booksellers are in pursuit of some fresh and fabulous local art- of which there is plenty!

We Project Mayhem authors are lucky to have really wonderful artwork in our books. It’s a great thing to have a publisher who pays attention to art and offers us some control when it co

Illustrations in middle-grade novels

Middle-grade might be far from picture books, but that doesn't mean our novels lack in art. Illustrations in middle-grade novels, to me, are an unexpected but delightful surprise. Because novels more often than not contain no illustrations at all, finding little bursts of art is like uncovering a loonie in a pile of dimes and nickels. (In case you're American and/or don't know what a loonie is: here you go.)

And here, when I speak of illustrations, I include everything small-scale yet intricate chapter headings to full-page illustrations. This comprehensive article from Publishing Crawl on the design process covers many behind-the-scenes details on the process of choosing an illustrator and decisions on illustrations; it's definitely worth a read.

 But on a more simple, reader level,  I wanted to share some personal favourites. I adore chapter heading/first page drawings, like the kinds found in Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes by Jonathan Auxier:

And take a look at the in-chapter drawings from The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy:

Text + art will always be a winning combination in my opinion. (I could go on and on about typography art... but that'd take an entire other post.) So what do you love most about illustrated middle-grade novels?

Finding Your Niche

I used to think it was as easy as making the decision to write YA or MG. Maybe that’s why it took me six years until I landed an agent.

I used to read a book and love it so much, I would think, “that’s how I want to write. I want to write a heartbreaking tale that sucks readers in too.” I never wrote more than a few pages. The same thing happened when I tried to write a mystery, and so on. There were so many fabulous books out there and I wanted more than anything to write a fabulous book too.



I happily found (and embraced) my
niche & it will be released on 01-11-11.

 For some reason, every story I wrote turned out…funny. You know how they say write what you know? I took some pretty horrible situations from my life when I was a teen and based a story loosely on that. I thought for sure I would have a suspenseful, dramatic tale. And I was probably made to write YA, not MG afterall. After the first chapter I realized I did the one thing I didn’t want to do. I twisted the terrible situations into humourous, light hearted ones that the character learned from instead. No, it was all wrong. The character should be suffering, not laughing! Why were my fingers typing the opposite of what I was thinking?

More importantly, why was I fighting it?

I was pushing back the real voice that wanted to come out the entire time. And the voice was always younger than actual age I gave the character. It was as if I had my mind made up on who the character would be, not who the character should be. I did this many times, hardly noticing. Little by little, I let that side come out. Was it really funny or was it trying to destroy my good ideas? Was this the reason agents were signing me?

Then last year I had a great idea for story. I was more than excited about the concept. I was ecstatic! I had never in my life been so thrilled and I immediately began writing (by hand) and drawing little cartoons to go with it. Sure, I liked to draw when I was kid, but that was the extent of it. I finished the book in two weeks. I laughed the entire time writing it. It was so funny, to me anyways. But I couldn’t help wondering in the back of my mind, is it really funny or am I the only one who thinks so?

I immediately nabbed an agent with the first query, Rosemary Stimola, and about two months later Random House bought the book. And the best part, I’m an illustrator now too! I would’ve never in a million years have thought that door would’ve open for me as well. But here’s the thing. I love writing humor, I embrace it now. That’s what I do. But I love drawing illus with it. It makes the story much funnier. I’m working on a new project that has illus and it really adds to the humor. I found myself going backwards and saying, “but what if I can’t really write? What if I can only do MG books with text AND illus?”

Um, was J.K. Rowling complaining that she only wrote Harry Potter? Or Jeff Kinney complaining that he only Diary of Wimpy Kid, which BTW is only text and illus too?

It’s great to eventually branch out, push your boundries, and even writiing across genres at some point. But starting out, it’s best to find your footing, discover who you are and what your writing is. Find your niche and perfect it. Make it distinct and suitable to you. Whether it’s cutting-edge, warm and friendly, feminine, authoritive, or high-energy, find the best way to describe your writing style and own it.


To get info on more on Rose's upcoming books and to view her art and illustrations, visit her website at http://www.rose-cooper.com/.