A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images.
The Randolph Caldecott Medal, frequently shortened to just the Caldecott, annually recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). The Caldecott and Newbery Medals are considered the most prestigious American children's book awards. Beside the Caldecott Medal, the committee awards a variable number of citations to runners-up they deem worthy, called the Caldecott Honor or Caldecott Honor Books.
Faith Ringgold was an American painter, author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and intersectional activist, perhaps best known for her narrative quilts.
Mary Azarian is an American woodcut artist and children's book illustrator. She won the 1999 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. It tells about the life of Wilson Bentley. She lives in Calais, Vermont. She produces original prints and has illustrated over 50 books.
Marcia Joan Brown was an American writer and illustrator of more than 30 children's books. She won three annual Caldecott Medals from the American Library Association, and six Caldecott Medal honors as an illustrator, recognizing the year's best U.S. picture book illustration, and the ALA's Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal in 1992 for her career contribution to children's literature. This total of nine books with awards and honors is more than any other Caldecott-nominated illustrator. Many of her titles have been published in translation, including Afrikaans, German, Japanese, Spanish and Xhosa-Bantu editions. Brown is known as one of the most honored illustrators in children's literature.
M. C. Higgins, the Great, first published in 1974, is a realistic novel by Virginia Hamilton that won the 1975 Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature. It also won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award; it was the first of only two books to do so.
Margaret Crosby "Peggy" Rathmann is an American illustrator and writer of children's picture books.
Barbara Cooney was an American writer and illustrator of 110 children's books, published over sixty years. She received two Caldecott Medals for her work on Chanticleer and the Fox (1958) and Ox-Cart Man (1979), and a National Book Award for Miss Rumphius (1982). Her books have been translated into 10 languages.
Molly Garrett Bang is an American illustrator. For her illustration of children's books she has been a runner-up for the American Caldecott Medal three times and for the British Greenaway Medal once. Announced June 2015, her 1996 picture book Goose is the 2016 Phoenix Picture Book Award winner – that is, named by the Children's Literature Association the best English-language children's picture book that did not win a major award when it was published twenty years earlier.
Black and White is a 1990 postmodern children's picture book by David Macaulay. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, it received mixed reviews upon its release, but it was the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1991. The book tells four overlapping stories, each drawn with a distinct visual style. The four stories are "Seeing Things", about a boy on a train trip by himself, "Problem Parents", about siblings whose parents behave differently one night, "A Waiting Game", about people waiting for a train, and "Udder Chaos", about cows who escape and then return to their field.
Hondo & Fabian is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Peter McCarty. It was released by Henry Holt & Co. in 2002 for ages 2-5. The book follows a day in the life of a dog, Hondo, and a cat, Fabian. Hondo goes on an adventure to the beach and Fabian stays at home with the baby. The story is told through minimal and simple present-tense text and complemented with warm and soft illustrations drawn in pencil and watercolor. Hondo & Fabian was very well received and was recognized with multiple awards including a Caldecott Honor. A sequel, Fabian Escapes, was released in 2007.
Edmund Evans was an English wood-engraver and colour printer during the Victorian era. He specialized in full-colour printing, a technique which, in part because of his work, became popular in the mid-19th century. He employed and collaborated with illustrators such as Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway and Richard Doyle to produce what are now considered to be classic children's books. Little is known about his life, although he wrote a short autobiography before his death in 1905 in which he described his life as a printer in Victorian London.
The Lion & the Mouse is a 2009 nearly wordless picture book illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. This book, published by Little, Brown and Company, tells Aesop's fable of The Lion and the Mouse. In the story, a mouse's life is a spared by a lion. Later, after the lion is trapped, the mouse is able to set the lion free. Adapting the fable, with the moral that the weak can help the strong, as a wordless picture book was seen as a successful way of overcoming the brief plot generally found in the source stories. While it was Pinkney's first wordless picture book, it was not the first time he had told the story, having previously included it in his Aesop's Fables, published in 2000. Pinkney, who had received five Caldecott Honors, became the first African American to win the Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in this book. His illustrations were generally praised for their realism and sense of place. The cover illustrations, featuring the title characters but no text, drew particular praise.
A Sick Day for Amos McGee is a 2010 children's picture book written by Philip C. Stead and was illustrated by Erin E. Stead. The book, published by Roaring Brook Press, depicts a zookeeper who has bonded with the animals he cares for and who come and visit him one day when he gets sick. Phillip Stead wrote the book hoping his wife Erin would illustrate it after a period where she had become discouraged with her art. The book was well reviewed, and Erin won the 2011 Caldecott Medal for her illustrations. The book received praise for its woodblock illustrations and for its message about what friends will do to help and support each other.
In the children's picture book Chanticleer and the Fox, Barbara Cooney adapted and illustrated the story of Chanticleer and the Fox as told in The Nun's Priest's Tale in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, translated by Robert Mayer Lumiansky. Published by Crowell in 1958, it was the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1959. It was also one of the Horn Book "best books of the year".
A Ball for Daisy is a 2011 children's wordless picture book written and illustrated by Chris Raschka. The book tells the story of a dog named Daisy, who has a beloved ball destroyed and then replaced. Raschka won the 2012 Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in the book. The creation of the book took years but was praised for its ability to evoke emotion in the reader. A sequel, Daisy Gets Lost, was released in 2013.
Flossie & the Fox is a 1986 picture book by Patricia C. McKissack about a girl, Flossie, who takes some eggs to a neighbor, meets a fox on the way and manages to outwit it. In 1991, a film adaptation of the book was made with the author narrating.
Hello Lighthouse is a picture book written and illustrated by Sophie Blackall. The book tells the story of a lighthouse and its last keeper and was well received, winning the 2019 Caldecott Medal for its illustrations. Drawing inspiration from a variety of sources, Blackall worked hard on the design of the book. The writing and illustrations were meant to complement each other noting the change and consistency of the sea.
Rudine Sims Bishop, professor emerita at Ohio State University, has been referred to as the "mother of" multicultural children's literature for her sociologically groundbreaking American children's literature research.
We Are Water Protectors is a 2020 picture book written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade. Written in response to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, the book tells the story of an Ojibwe girl who fights against an oil pipeline in an effort to protect the water supply of her people. It was published by Roaring Brook Press on March 17, 2020. The book was well received. Critics praised its message of environmental justice, its depiction of diversity, and the watercolor illustrations, for which Goade won the 2021 Caldecott Medal, becoming the first Indigenous recipient of the award. The book also received the 2021 Jane Addams Children's Book Award winner in the Books for Younger Children category.
