Write-in Roundup

In our suggestions post and in the write-in portion of our ballot, you brought to our attention several contenders that we hadn’t addressed yet this year on this blog. Though nobody knows for sure what the Real Committee is considering, it’s likely that these titles have at least made an appearance on their reading lists, so we want to give them a chance to shine here as well.  They span the Geisel criteria, from a book with only six words to a picture book, a couple of intermediate chapter books, and a graphic novel. Below is a round-up of the write-in titles.

Image from Macmillan.com

Hippopotamister by John Patrick Green

Red Panda and Hippopotamus decide to leave the run down old City Zoo to experience the exciting outside world. Hippopotamus has a natural knack for lots of jobs; unfortunately, Red Panda's hysterically terrible mistakes get them fired from every one. Hitting the upper range of the Geisel criteria, this attractive full-color graphic novel squeaks in at exactly 96 pages. The text, surrounded by white space in narrative boxes or speech bubbles, is often supported by clear visual context clues. Sequential panels alternate with two page spreads, moving the plot along. Will emerging readers struggle with the large vocabulary and long sentences? Will the sentence-interrupting page turns be confusing? Will readers be intimidated by the challenging to pronounce title? One thing’s for sure, readers who triumph will delight in the witty wordplay and hilarious situations in this animal-fueled adventure.

The Infamous Ratsos by Kara Lareau, Illustrated by Matt Myers

Image from penguinrandomhouse.com

The Ratso brothers, Louie and Ralphie, aspire to be just as tough as their father. They go out of their way to do tough, mean things, but somehow they end up helping their classmates and neighbors. Ultimately, they learn that “Life is tough enough…We might as well make it easier for one another, whenever we can.” Another title at the upper end of the Geisel age range, there are still frequent black and white spot illustrations to provide context for actions and characters. The text, although printed in a large font with lots of leading (distance between the lines of type), is full of long, complex words (“distracts”, “heavily”, “business”) and names (Florinda Rabbitski, Mrs. Porcupini). Would these create stumbling blocks for emerging readers? Another factor is the complicated punctuation and the length of sentences. With lots of commas and many sentences over 12 words long, this title might lean more toward an early chapter book, rather than a beginning reader.  

Image from penguinrandomhouse.com

Juana & Lucas by Juana Medina

In Bogotá, Colombia, a young girl named Juana struggles through learning English in school. Fortunately for her, after school her best four-legged friend Lucas is waiting to offer moral support. This 88-page intermediate chapter book is at the very top of the Geisel age range, and it presents a lot of interesting points for discussion.  With full-color illustrations on every page, it resembles contenders like the Princess in Black series and What’s Up, Chuck?, but the vocabulary and sentence structure is perhaps even more complex than those titles, due to Juana’s bubbly, conversational first-person narration.  The font is used in the book design, going very large or very small for emphasis, or spilling across the page into the illustrations, or fading to gray, among other tricks.  Additionally, the text is peppered with italicized Spanish words.  Confident readers of English will be able to parse most of these based on context, but readers who are still struggling with English and have no knowledge of Spanish may be thrown for a curve. On the other hand, readers with some knowledge of both languages may appreciate this book all the more.  It’s certainly a great multicultural read with an appealing heroine (and adorable dog!), but is it truly a book for beginning readers?  That will be up to the committee to discuss.

Leave Me Alone! by Vera Brogsol

Image from macmillan.com

A little old woman just wants to be left alone to finish her knitting, but her very large family won’t give her any peace.  Neither will the bears, mountain goats, and aliens that she encounters in her quest for solitude.  Will she ever find a quiet place to knit? The illustrations and the text support each other nicely, but there are some instances of rich vocabulary (samovar, wormhole, void, matte, utterly) which, though supported in the illustrations, are likely to pose a challenge.  And, though the font is clear and reasonably large, the text does wander around the page, and there are a couple of instances where it might get lost in a particularly busy spread.  Most of the sentences are short, but a few reach 15-18 words in length, and contractions are plentiful, including “she’d,” which can be particularly confusing to some beginning readers. Will emergent readers be put off by the vocabulary, or will the engaging plot and plentiful humor be enough to sustain interest?  Either way, this is a picture book that will be thoroughly enjoyed as a read-aloud by many, many dedicated knitters and their families!

This is NOT a Cat! By David LaRochelle, illustrated by Mike Wohnoutka

image from davidlarochelle.net

In this humorous tale by David LaRochelle, a trickster receives a comeuppance when the real deal appears. Using only six distinct words - This, is, not, a, cat, and it’s - the story relies on repetition with differing emphasis to convey humor in the text. The illustrations do most of the heavy lifting for the story, with the first and final spreads appearing free of text entirely. Will beginning readers be able to sufficiently focus on the illustrations to understand the action? Will the need for changes in emphasis, indicated by italicized font, be an achievable reading challenge for these beginning readers? Certainly, the brevity of the story is a mark in its favor as a book for beginning readers, as is the appeal of the spread in which each member of the classroom yells “ A cat!”

Although none of them garnered enough support to top our mock ballot results, the Real Committee will have spent more time with these titles in the company of children. As anyone who has served on an award committee knows, one fervent supporter can make a real difference in a title’s chances -- and each book listed above has at least one fervent supporter among the readers of our blog. Will any of these titles provide the most successful experience for a beginning reader?

Voting is still open on our Mock Geisel Ballot #2! An analysis of the ballot #1 results can be found here.

Mock Ballot #2

Thanks to everyone who voted on the first ballot! We had 55 responses, but no conclusive winner (read Amanda's results post for all the juicy details). So we've narrowed the field for our second ballot to only include titles that received at least 10 points from the first ballot. This leaves us with 19 titles. 

Even if you didn't vote in the first ballot, we invite you to vote on this second ballot. Please, complete only one ballot per person. For this ballot, filling in all three questions is required. This ballot will stay open Jan. 8th-14th. It's not required that you have read all books to participate, although we recommend reading as many as possible,and reading reviews here and elsewhere.

As with the first ballot (and like the real committee), we'll be weighting the responses with 4 points for each first choice vote, 3 points for each second choice vote, and 2 points for each third choice vote.

For more information on how we will conduct the first Guessing Geisel Mock Election, check out our recent post describing the process.


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Mock Geisel: First Ballot Results

A description of the events of the Midwinter Selection Meeting can be found on page 31 of the manual. Where describing the vote, it explains that:

“There is a formula to determine the winner.

A book must receive at least four first place votes at four points per vote for a total of at least 16 points.  In addition, that book must have a four-point lead over the book receiving the next highest number of points.”

Of the seven members of the Real Committee, the four first place votes represent a simple majority of the committee. Our first ever Guessing Geisel Mock selection had 55 participants, making the number required for a simple majority 28 votes. No title received this number of first place votes. With a committee the size of our mock, enough participants to make up nearly 8 years of real committees, it seems improbable that we will be able to meet this threshold. So we look to the second criteria, which requires that the winner have a point lead equivalent to at least one first place vote, which our highest scoring title does not have, with only 2 points over our second highest scoring title!

We must conduct one more round to determine our winner. It is possible that the real committee will have to do so as well. Or, they may have a winning ballot on the first round, in which case they would proceed to “considering whether or not to select Honor Books”.  If the real committee finds themselves “re-balloting,” the manual has this to say:

“Re-Balloting

The committee may not proceed to another ballot without a second round of book discussion.   At this point, certain choices present themselves, and certain procedures apply:

·         By consensus the committee may choose to withdraw from the discussion list all books that received no votes on the first ballot.

·         By consensus the committee may choose to withdraw additional books that received minimal support on the first ballot. “

We included quite a wide range of titles on our suggested list and first ballot. For our second ballot, we will exercise the procedures offered for removing books from consideration (in this case by consensus of your blog hosts). Six of our 46 titles received no votes at all, and 12 received only one vote each. 27 of our titles have less than 10 points. These are good books, even great books. They may even be excellent. But they are not our winner - they do not have the support of our mock committee. And so we will say goodbye to them.

The titles that remain:

Interestingly, this still leaves titles that received no first place votes at all, but received as many as five 2nd and 3rd place votes. These are quite unlikely to come from behind to be determined as our winner here, but have sufficient support to remain on our list so that everyone can complete all three places on their ballot. Just think - if all five of their voters happened to be on the real committee together this title could have sufficient support to rise to the top. 

On to our prime contenders, those titles which our committee, upon review of these first ballot results would need to engage in a second round of discussion. It is no longer enough to demonstrate that these titles are distinguished - one must be determined to be more distinguished than the other by a majority of the committee.

Here on our Mock Committee, our top two apparent contenders provide an engaging contrast. With 14 total votes, 10 first place votes, and 49 total points, They All Saw A Cat holds a strong lead over much of the field. A picture book contender, carrying on the fine tradition of such past winners as You Are (Not) Small, The Watermelon Seed, and Not A Box, They All Saw A Cat has received at least 3 starred reviews and its potential as a Caldecott contender has been discussed on Calling Caldecott. Following very closely - certainly close enough to cause a second ballot - is Go, Otto, Go! by David Milgrim with 12 votes, 11 first place votes, and 47 total points. Go, Otto, Go! is a Simon Spotlight’s Ready to Read book, a reader in the fine tradition of such past winners as Don’t Throw It To Mo, Chicken Said Cluck!, and Henry and Mudge and the Great Grandpas. And you read that correctly - Go, Otto, Go! received one more first place vote than They All Saw A Cat.

Because this ballot is not our final ballot, anything could still happen. Perhaps no one will be swayed to move from Otto or Cat to the other, or to move their third place vote up to a second place or first place spot, and instead the five votes supporting Cookie Fiasco will be convinced by the argument of their fellows that We Are Growing is the stronger title and their support will bring it into the lead. Or perhaps such a compelling argument will be made by fans of The Princess in Black and the Hungry Bunny Hoard that it will shoot to the top of the ballot.

The committee’s discussion would need to bring up new insights and comparisons. All those titles remaining on the table would be open for discussion, and committee members might share new information and observations about how children interacted with these titles.

Please feel free to bring up your arguments for the excellence of any of our remaining titles in the comments, as well as reactions to these first round results. We’ll be posting the second ballot at midnight!