2010 Caldecott Medal Winner

THE LION AND THE MOUSE by Jerry Pinkney

Glorious lion face on the front cover is of this book is just the first hint to the rich pictures in this nearly wordless retelling of Aesop's fable. Set in Africa's Serengeti plain, the crux of the story is a mouse who accidentally disturbs a sleeping lion is captured by the lion then unexpectedly released. When the lion is capture in a hunters net, the mouse returns to chew through the net, releasing the lion in return. It's a moral of one selfless act being rewarded by another selfless act.

Interestingly, the only words in this book are sounds, the screech of owls flying through the tree tops, the lion's roar when capture in the net and the squeaks of the mouse as she tells her little mice of her release. You can can almost hear her saying “You're never going to believe what happened to me today.” The only humans, the men who build the net that captures the lion, are shown with faces hidden and create there own noises as they build the net.

Jerry Pinkney, a five time recipient of both the Coretta Scott King award winner and Caldecott Honor, was long overdue for a the Caldecott Award. This book shows how Pinkney's talent can make words unnecessary. The wordless of this book lets the child and the adult story sharer (you can't call them readers) develop a dialogue about the story on their own and lends to the possibility of a bigger dialog between child and adult about the value of helping others without thought of personal gain.

Patricia Schroader
Children's Librarian

2010 Newbery Medal Winner

It makes sense to me that a book where an integral part of the story relies on information from a past Newbery Medal winner would become an Newbery Medal winner itself. In When You Reach Me, the favorite book of Miranda is A Wrinkle in Time, the 1963 winner.

Miranda's life is pretty unremarkable until the day she finds a note in her library book. Miranda is 12 year old, living with her mother in apartment in a run down section of Manhattan in 1979. Beyond the normal middle school politics of who's cool and who's not, the biggest crisis in her life is the loss of her friendship with her childhood friend, Sal. Then she finds a note with a cryptic message that tells her “I am coming to save your friend's life, and my own...I will not be myself when I reach you,” asking her to “write me a letter.” This book is the letter Miranda wrote to her unknown pen pal.

There is plenty of suspense, intermingled with Miranda's struggles to connect with new friends, to keep this book a true page turner. The ending is ironically both expected, yet unexpected, as Stead neatly ties in all the gaps, leaving the reader thinking, “Aha! That's what that clue meant.” This book receives my vote as a worthy Newbery Medal winner.

Patricia Schroader
Children's Librarian