A Caldecott Celebration: Six Artists Share Their Paths to the Caldecott Medal [Hardcover]

Leonard S. Marcus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999

Step into the studios of six acclaimed illustrators and see how their Caldecott Medal-winning books were created. Children's book lovers of all ages will not want to miss this unique behind-the-scenes tour spanning 60 years of picture-book illustration history.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Books bearing medals have the look of things that have been with us forever. But the truth, of course, is that someone, sometime, had to draw(and probably redraw) the pictures and write (and revise) the words. Certainly, none of the six Caldecott books described in the pages that follow just happened.... You are about to meet the people who made them. And you are about to see six works of art as ideas in the making: sketches and scribbles on the way to becoming books that readers prize."

Leonard S. Marcus's thoughtful recognition of the labor and serendipity that go into the making of great art illuminates every page of A Caldecott Celebration. It is also to his credit that he has chosen six of the most beloved titles in the canon of American literature as his representative sample of Caldecott-winning children's titles: Robert McCloskey's Make Way for Ducklings, Marcia Brown's version of Cinderella, Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, William Steig's Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, and Chris Van Allsburg's Jumanji.

Marcus's subjects--both texts and creators--have amazing stories behind them. Robert McCloskey, we learn, brought 16 ducks to live with him in his small Greenwich Village apartment while he was working on Ducklings, and he drew the final versions of the tale directly onto sheets of metal to abet the printing process. When William Steig chose a donkey to be the main character of Sylvester, he spent a long time thereafter trying to decide if the creature should walk on two legs, human-style, or remain more realistically four-legged. And Maurice Sendak spent years working on a tale that wasn't going anywhere: "Where the Wild Horses Are." Not a drop of the mystery and fondness one feels toward these works is diluted by the details shared in A Caldecott Celebration, and after reading Marcus's considered tribute, you'll only love these books the better. --Jean Lenihan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Filled with witty anecdotes and pithy observations, Marcus's (Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom) approach to examining the works of six Caldecott Medalists will be of as much interest to adults as to picture book readers. He has chosen one book from each decade, "so that viewed together, the six offer an informal cross section through time of the American picture book": Robert McCloskey's Make Way for Ducklings, Marcia Brown's Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper, Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, William Steig's Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Chris Van Allsburg's Jumanji and David Wiesner's Tuesday. With a generous sprinkling of the artists' own words and sometimes those of his or her editor, Marcus chronicles the inspiration behind these works, the creative process, the artists' reactions to winning the prestigious award and its effect on their careers. He fills the volume with the kinds of details children relish: McCloskey once shared his Greenwich Village digs with 16 ducks and Steig does black-and-white drawings first, then fills in each color one by one throughout the book. Encouraging readers to see each picture book through the artist's eyes, Marcus shows Brown's compositional studies, explains how Van Allsburg chose from which perspective to view the coiled python in the living room and how Sendak decided "that the illustrations leading up to the rumpus would get larger and larger, as Max's emotions pushed out the words." He traces the evolution of the illustrations for Tuesday from Wiesner's first quick sketches, when the idea occurred to him on a jet plane. With Marcus's sure hand guiding this tour, readers will find cause for celebration. All ages.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 48 pages
• Publisher: Walker Books for Young Readers (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802786561
• ISBN-13: 978-0802786562
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,217,761 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential part of a children's lit lover's library!, May 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Caldecott Celebration: Six Artists Share Their Paths to the Caldecott Medal (Hardcover)

Most people who are in love with children's picture books are aware that the Caldecott award is given for the illustrations in picture books. This book gives the origins of the award and the guidelines for selection of the Caldecott Award-winning book.It analyzes specific illustrators/books that have been deemed Caldecott worthy over the past centuries including Chris van Allsburg, Marcia Brown, and David Weisner. Included at the end is a chronological list of every book awarded the prestigious Caldecott award. This is a great supplement to anyone's children's library. It gives great insight into the minds of these incredibly talented illustrators.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating Peek Behind the Scenes, January 20, 2009

By 

Beth Gallego (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Caldecott Celebration: Six Artists Share Their Paths to the Caldecott Medal (Hardcover)

This is the older edition of Marcus's study of Caldecott winners. Six artists, one from each decade of the 1940s-1990s, are profiled in brief sections heavily sprinkled with photographs and reproductions of both their final artwork and their preparatory sketches. A great introduction to Caldecott history, but readers should seek out the new edition, which includes a profile of Mordicai Gerstein, who won the Caldecott in 2004.