About the Collection

I started collecting Caldecott books just over 15 years ago. My interest in them began with a Children's Literature class that I took at my local community college in order to fulfill the prerequisites needed for my teaching program. It was all part of one of those "Here's a list to check for high-quality children's literature" lectures.  As I combed the list while half-listening to the rest of the lecture, I realized that I recognized several of the titles from my own childhood. In particular, I recall having a particularly vivid flash of sitting crisscross-applesauce in my elementary school library as the teacher presented us with Lee and Diane Dillon's Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears. The face on the front cover was as vivid in my mind as it had been before my eyes some 35 years earlier.

Flashbacks like inspired my curiosity, and as I started my own family, I began to seek out some of my favorite "oldies but goodies" and newer Caldecott recipients for my own children. It wasn't long before their shelves were filled with No David!, The Stray Dog, Kitten's First Full Moon, and In the Small, Small Pond. My son was particularly enthralled with Uri Shulevitz's Snow, Eric Rohmann's My Friend Rabbit, and Ed Emberly's Drummer Hoff. Although my daughter liked Maurice Sendak's Outside Over There and John Schoenherr's Owl Moon, she was more interested other efforts by Caldecott-winning artists, such as Arnold Lobel's Mouse Soup and the Frog and Toad series, as well as Adrienne Adams's The Easter Bunny That Overslept. I think I read all of these at least a thousand times.

It didn't stop there, however. As a teacher, I sought out picture books for my middle schoolers. Whether it was to provide reading options for those who struggled, or to have text set materials that could deepen their understanding of a research topic without bogging them down, or even simply to offer them something beautiful and interesting to experience -- picture books were a permanent fixture in my classroom, and whenever a new need arose, I always started my search with the Caldecott list.

So, long story short, I spend about five years looking for titles that would appeal to infants, adolescents, and every age in between. This breadth and my own admittedly compulsive nature was the perfect storm: A Caldecott Collector was born.

Today, I have a copy of every Caldecott-winning and Honor book. After years of just grabbing what I could find, I am now starting from the beginning to re-discover these titles and look at them more deeply -- and to share this journey with anyone who may be interested.