Your 2025 Caldecott Comment Card

Today’s the big day! Once the Caldecott winners have been announced, I want to know what you think. Go ahead and share in the comments.
- Which Caldecott choice are you happiest with?
- Which Caldecott-eligible book did the committee miss?
Filed under: Articles
About Travis Jonker
Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
SLJ Blog Network
Review of the Day: The Five Sides of Marjorie Rice by Amy Alznauer, ill. Anna Bron
Wynd: The Power of the Blood #3 | Preview
Goodbye for now
When Book Bans are a Form of Discrimination, What is the Path to Justice?
ADVERTISEMENT
YAY for My Daddy Is a Cowboy! It was my pick all year long for the Caldecott Medal, and it ended up with both an honor and the CSK Illustrator Award. I thought that Being Home was beautiful and definitely deserved recognition. I also wish that The Yellow Bus had been picked.
I am mostly just disappointed in myself for failing to have gotten ANY of the Caldecotts ahead of time! I wouldn’t say I’m terribly surprised or disappointed in the choices, though, because although I enjoyed the books I’d put into my own Mock Caldecott, none of them screamed out YES THIS NEEDS TO WIN at me. In fact the one I was most impressed with was Life After Whale, and not only did that get the Silbert instead, it DESERVES the Silbert more than the Caldecott. So I assume the ones I will rave about ARE among the winners, and I just haven’t seen them myself yet!
I was thrilled to see Home in a Lunchbox take an honor. I thought it was phenomenal, and it has been the hands down favorite in the Mock Caldecott unit in my elementary school library. My students and I are very disappointed that The Yellow Bus didn’t get an honor. I felt like it really deserved some recognition. My students have also loved the artwork in Being Home.
My 7th grade students picked Home in A Lunchbox as our Mock Caldecott winner, so I was very happy to see that it got an honor. We didn’t read Chooch Helped, so I’m excited to read it to them and to see if we can discern why the committee chose it,