March 15, 2005
UF associate librarian on 2005 Caldecott Award selection committee
Rita Smith, associate librarian in the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections and curator of the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature, served on the 2005 Caldecott Award Selection Committee. Each January the committee selects the most distinguished American picture book for children published in English in the United States during the preceding year. The award goes to the illustrator of that book, who must be a citizen or established resident of the United States.
The announcement of the award is the culmination of a lot of work, reading, and discussion by a group of 15 people who compose the committee. Of the 15 members, eight, including the chair, are elected by members of the Association of Library Service to Children or ALSC, a division of the American Library Association. The other seven members are appointed by the President of ALSC to balance the gender, ethnic, professional and geographic representation of the committee. Each committee serves for one year. Rita’s participation on the 2005 Committee meant that she read books published in 2004 and the winner and honor books were announced in 2005.
After the winner was selected, three honor books were chosen. The winning title this year is Kitten’s First Full Moon written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes. The three Honor books were: The Red Book, a wordless book illustrated by Barbara Lehman; Knuffle Bunny written and illustrated by Mo Willems; and Coming On Home Soon illustrated by E. B. Lewis, written by Jacqueline Woodson.
Rita thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being on the Caldecott Committee. “It was an honor,” she said, “to be appointed to the Committee and a wonderful opportunity to learn more about picture books and to get to know the other committee members who were an articulate and interesting group of people.