Caldecott Reader Certificate 1983

Title: Caldecott Reader Award
Date: February 25, 1983
Category: Award
Current Status: Undetermined; Probably recycle but possibly framed and hung in my cubicle at work

I don't remember getting this at all. Granted, I was 8 at the time, but still, I usually have some vague memory of stuff like this.

I couldn't even remember what the Caldecott was in reference to... so I looked it up. It's one of those annual awards (named for Randolph Caldecott) given to illustrators deemed to have done the best work on a children's book. Some notable winners are The Polar Express (Chris Van Allsburg), The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats), and Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak). Other such classic titles as A Tree Is Nice, Duffy and the Devil, and Sam, Bangs & Moonshine have also won. To learn more, go to the American Library Association's website where they have all sorts of exciting info about the Caldecott. Also congrats to this year's winner, The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. I've never heard of it, but I'm sure it's grand.

Of course, this isn't the actual Caldecott Medal (as I've never had anything published, much less won an award for it), this is a Reader Certificate. My guess is that I read a certain number of Caldecott award winning books or something and got this to commemorate it. I really don't know. Perhaps I will ask Mrs. Mona Kerby, the Librarian at the time of J.B. Little elementary school what the heck this was for.

BTW, Ezra Jack Keat's book The Snowy Day rocked my world as a kid. If you've got kids, you should find a copy and read it to them.