2003 Caldecott Medal Winner, My Friend Rabbit by Eric Rohmann

This book, told from the point of view of a mouse, is about a jinxed little rabbit. He keeps trying to help out, but every time that he does, he ends up making a huge mess. In the beginning of the book, the rabbit throws a toy airplane and it gets stuck in a tree. So he gets all of the other animals to climb on top of each other. He pulls some and pushes others, but eventually they're all in a big tower, reaching up towards the tree where the little toy airplane is stuck. Right when they get to the top of the stack, the rabbit holds out a squirrel, who holds out the little mouse to reach out and get the plane, but that throws off the balance of the entire tower, and they all come tumbling to the ground.


This is a cute little book, but as I imagine reading it to my niece or nephew, I don't imagine them adoring it and wanting to read it over and over as they do with some books. To begin with, there isn't a lot of variety on each page. Many young children like to see something on the page and point at it and say the word. In this book, just about every page has the same images, so there will be little for a child to look forward to. Children do enjoy animals, though, and this may be the saving grace for this title.

It is a well-written and nicely illustrated book. However, I do not see anything extraordinary about it. I should take it to my nieces and nephews and see if they agree with my evaluation.



Rohmann, Eric (2002). My friend rabbit. Brookfield, CT: Roaring Brook Press.

Rohmann, E (2002). Blaine.org. Retrieved February 15, 2009, from Blaine.org Web site: http://blaine.org/jules/my%20friend%20rabbit.jpg

2008 Caldecott Honor Book, First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

In First the Egg, Seeger uses color and geometry to creatively integrate the color of previous pages into the design of the current page. The result is a short little book whose every page leaves the reader wondering why each background color was chosen for every page, and what that background color will become once the page is flipped.

The message of this story is quite simple: things grow and develop. The egg develops into the chicken. The seed grows into a flower, and again at the end, the chicken develops another egg.

The best of the examples of growth and development is the page that shows the development from a word into a story. This could encourage students to begin creating their own stories, either through writing or through story-telling.










Seeger, L.V. (2007). First the egg. New Milford, Connecticut: Roaring Brook Press.

Seeger, L.V. (2007). wplnewchildrensbooks. Retrieved February 6, 2009, from wplnewchildrensbooks Web site: http://wplnewchildrensbooks.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/egg.jpg

2004 Caldecott Winner, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein

Children's books have the ability to teach to readers both young and old. Philippe Petit was a name I had never heard until reading this book, but now that I have, I am curious to learn more. This is the story of a Parisian tightrope walker and his daring feat of walking, dancing, jumping, and lying on a tightrope strung between the twin towers of New York City's World Trade Center buildings on August 7, 1974, shortly before the towers were completed.

It strikes me that people just fifteen years older than I am might clearly remember this famous performance and consider its existence to be a part of American cultural literacy, while people my age most likely have never heard anything about it from simply not having lived through that moment. Likewise, elementary students today will grow up in a world where those famous buildings are some vague concept of American history and tragedy, like the Challenger explosion or the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Without this book, young people today might never hear the phrase World Trade Center unless it were followed by the word attacks. Gerstein has created a story that will remind children that these buildings didn't just fall, but that they existed years and years before that terrible day, and they were a part of some wonderful events as well.

Gerstein uses varied sizes of illustrations throughout the work to make each page seem like a new and exciting experience. There are also several fold out pages. At times, the book must be held sideways to fully appreciate the pictures. This helps convey the overwhelming height of the buildings.

Gerstein, M (2003). The man who walked between the towers. Brookfield, Connecticut: Roaring Brook Press.

Gerstein, M (2003). The man who walked between the towers. Retrieved February 1, 2009, from Amazon Web site:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0761317910.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Caldecott 2000 Honor Book, Sector 7 by David Wiesner

When I first flipped through this book and saw that it was a picture book, my first impression was to be skeptical. I know that picture books are appropriate for children of certain ages, but, not having kids of my own, and not having spent a lot of time with picture books since they were age-appropriate for me, I must admit that my expectations were low.

I should have known, however, that Caldecott Honors are not given away so freely. This was one of the more intriguing children's books I have read. In the story, a group of children take a field trip to the Empire State building. When they reach the observation deck, one boy meets a cloud, plays with him, and is then whisked up into the sky by his puffy new friend. The cloud takes him to Sector 7, a sort of factory where clouds are designed, created, and shipped to their proper locations in the sky.

The boy helps create a cloud that is shaped like a fish, with intricate detail surrounding each scale. Then the cloud bosses (who, strangely, are human) asenter and force the cloud friend to take him back to the Empire State building. Luckily, he gets back just in time to regroup with his classmates and head home. That night, as the boy sleeps, he is wrapped up in a fish cloud that has formed above his bed. His pet cat and the real fish in his aquarium look on in bewilderment.

I could see this being a great book to share with a class of elementary students. It could lead to a conversation about what shapes they have seen in clouds, and if they had the chance to design a cloud like the boy in the story was able to do, what design would they make. This connection with the story would help the students to think creatively, and also to see themselves in the reading.




Wiesner, David (1999). Sector 7. New York, NY: Clarion Books.

Wiesner, David (1999). ecx amazon images. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from ecx.images-amazon.com Web site: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51P8ZXYR8QL._SL500_.jpg

2003 Caldott Honor Book, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, by Mo Willems

This 2003 Caldott Honor book, written and illustrated by Mo Willems, is a book appropriate for young readers between the ages of two and six. The text is minimal, with some pages containing only a sentence, while others have no words at all. The illustrations as sparse as well, but they work and are light and playful.

In my opinion, what makes this book special is the conversational language and the moral overtones. First, though there are very few words, what is there is not the typical text-book style of writing that one might expect. Instead, there are phrases like "How 'bout" and "C'mon!" These little bits of vernacular make the book, the characters, and the dialog seem more personal and fun.

With respect to the moral of this fun little story, it is always a good idea to reinforce the idea of respecting authority and doing what one knows is right. The bus driver, just as a teacher, police officer, or parent might, gives the child instructions for what to do. When that person is out of sight, the child must obey even though there are temptations to do otherwise.




Willems, Mo (2003). Don't_let_the_pigeon.jpg. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from LARL.ORG Web site: http://www.larl.org
/kids/images/don%27t_let_the_pigeon.jpg

Willems, M (2003). Don't let the pigeon drive the bus!. New York, NY: Hyperion Books For Children.