Because I teach K-5 library classes I focus on the Caldecott Medal and mention the Newberry to my older students. It’s not that the other awards aren’t for my students it’s just that it is easy to hold a Mock Caldecott for all the ages that go through my library. The day I can figure out how to do something similar for my Junior High students I will let you know. I would like to get them involved in some way! When you look at the full list of Youth Media Award winners you realize it is quite a remarkable group of children’s literature. How blessed our countries children are! Awards such as the Coretta Scott King for outstanding African American authors and illustrators, the Michael L. Printz award for literary excellence in young adult literature, the Odyssey Award for best audio book for children or young adults and the Pura Belpre Award for a Latino writer or illustrator who’s work best portrays the Latino cultural experience show the wonderful diversity in children’s literature. Yet, there are still more awards given each year.

The Mock Caldecott was fun this year. I’m certain that this being my second timing holding it made it more successful. The student’s were exposed to more books and I changed our ballots so they could better critique the books. 3rd through 5th grades were able to read almost all of the 27 books in our contest. It was exciting to listen to Student Council announce our winners and hear the classrooms cheer. Today I was happy to discover that two of the books our students chose were two of the books the Caldecott Committee chose. To see the full list of books head on over to the ALA Youth Media Awards live webcast page. You can even watch the announcements if you want to! To review the results of our Mock Caldecott head on over to the post Students Have Their Say. Here are the 2015 Caldecott books.