Lowering the Voting Age: Children’s choice awards are a great way to get kids excited about reading

The excited voices of young students echo through the tiled hallways of my school as I make my daily classroom rounds. “Who won?!” “Who won?!” they anxiously ask me, their librarian at New York City’s Bank Street College of Education lab school.

What’s the eager anticipation all about? My students represent some of the nearly 10,000 first through fourth graders from around the globe who take part in the annual ritual of choosing the winners of the Irma S. and James H. Black Award for top picture book author and illustrator—and finding out which of the four finalists has won is always a fun-filled event.

Why do I read hundreds of picture books each year (some 400 titles are eligible), argue (or shall I say respectfully discuss) the pros and cons of each one with my colleagues, and beg for money to buy more books? It’s not because my job calls for teaching critical thinking skills or that my principal hounds me to prove that my curriculum supports the Common Core standards. It’s because I get to witness elementary school students passionately advocate for their favorite picture books. And because I see firsthand how they learn to use the illustrations and text to form opinions about why they’re more drawn to certain books than others. Most of all, I’m overjoyed to see the sense of ownership it gives them as they choose the winners themselves.

Sponsored by the Bank Street College of Education, the Irma S. Black Award is just one of dozens of readers’ choice awards in which kids—not adults—vote for their favorite books. It also happens to be a perfect way to motivate children to read. I know that’s true, because I’ve done it for the past 15 years—and I can honestly say there’s no better way for a school or public library program to offer kids an exciting curriculum that includes Common Core State Standards that focus on critical thinking and other vital skills. Turning the award process into a lesson provides a way for me to collaborate with classroom teachers, as we plan and create the curriculum together.

This year, my students and I focused on the four finalists: Peter Brown’s You Will Be My Friend (Little, Brown), Dan Yaccarino’s All the Way to America: The Story of a Big Italian Family and a Little Shovel (Knopf), J. Klassen’s I Want My Hat Back (Candlewick), and Fiona Robinson’s What Animals Really Like (Abrams). What did kids learn? Using Brown’s book, they gained knowledge about the challenge of trying to make a new friend by relating the story to their own lives. They also learned to make intertextual connections about the art in various books, including another title by Brown called Children Make Terrible Pets (Little, Brown).

My students’ eyes lit up when they realized Yaccarino’s All the Way to America, about four generations of an Italian-American family, is based on the author’s life. We exchanged stories about our own families and how they came to America, and I asked the kids to communicate these tales to each other both verbally and in writing.

Klassen’s I Want My Hat Back, about a bear whose hat goes missing, offers a great way to analyze and synthesize a story by using clues from its text and illustrations. How do we know what happened to the hat? On what page does Bear eat the rabbit? (Hint: there’s no rabbit in the story.) Why do you think Bear was lying? All of these questions elicited some very insightful responses.

With its hilarious text and lively illustrations, Robinson’s What Animals Really Like—which ended up as this year’s winner—proved an excellent way for kids to learn about the dangers of stereotyping. As we read and reread the four titles, the children learned to express their preferences by using the text and pictures to support their ideas.

Our participation in the Irma Black Award process goes beyond selecting and voting for a favorite picture book. We discuss the key elements that go into making an illustrated book, such as cover art, endpapers, font choices, and page layout. Students analyze the words and images, and can, for example, recognize a book by Brown based on its writing style and illustrations. My first and second graders can also evaluate the words and stories in each of the four book-award finalists, and are able to discern whether the artwork is realistic or cartoonish, and whether the medium is watercolor or collage.

The project also offers a crucial professional development tool for teachers, since each year they’re given exceptional new picture books to share with their students. This encourages educators to expand their lessons beyond such old favorites as Stone Soup and Caps for Sale.

The feedback thus far is amazing. “Our Irma Black picture book study has been the cornerstone of our literacy curriculum,” says Bank Street teacher Gregory David, explaining that the curriculum is adaptable for different learning styles. “I’ve never seen a more engaged group of listeners.” David uses the texts from the finalists to model reading and writing strategies, and asks questions such as, “Who can tell me what will happen next? Do the characters look really sad? And did you notice the repetition?”

State awards

With so many readers’ choice awards out there, you can pick and choose the one that best suits your needs. Many state associations sponsor children’s choice awards through their regional teachers’, reading, and library associations. Indiana has the Young Hoosiers Book Award, Alabama offers the Camellia Award, Florida is known for its Sunshine Readers, and Hawaii has the Nene Award. All of them provide outstanding children’s titles on a “master list” for kids to read, enjoy, analyze, and discuss. Author Cynthia Leitich Smith provides a list of links to state awards for children’s and young adult readers’ choice programs on her website.

Children’s book publishers appreciate these state awards because they boost book sales while helping to foster a culture of reading. Victoria Stapleton, the director of school and library marketing for Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, says, “Titles that may not get a lot of attention from the well-known awards find a spot on these master lists and have an opportunity to reach readers. A good example is All of the Above by Shelly Pearsall.” The book, based on real life, tells the story of four inner-city students and their quest to build the world’s largest tetrahedron.

One of the most well-known readers’ choice awards is the Texas Bluebonnet, which lets students in grades three to six vote for their favorite titles. “There’s a lot of talk these days about what kids should and shouldn’t read, and it’s terrific for them to have a say in those recommendations,” says Caity Barillas, the Texas Library Association’s membership coordinator. All school and public libraries in Texas, as well as homeschool associations, are urged to participate in the Texas Bluebonnet Award. Teachers and parents also are encouraged to read some of the books aloud to their students and children.

Mock Caldecott and mock Newbery

Many school and public librarians hold mock Caldecott Awards with their students to determine their own winner of the award for the most distinguished picture book for children. Mock Caldecotts are a terrific way to examine picture book art and media, but they can sometimes confuse kids about what makes a “best picture book” because first and second graders may not understand that the Caldecott is strictly given for the best illustrations—and not for an entire book. Tali Balas, a teacher-librarian at New York’s Ethical Culture Fieldston School, says that each year when she hosts a mock Caldecott with her students, “I need to emphasize that the Caldecott criterion is solely for the illustrations not for the words.” We are looking at the “excellence of execution of artistic technique, appropriateness of the style to the story, setting, and mood, and the delineation of the plot, characters, and setting through the pictures. The committee is to make its decision primarily on the illustration.”

Every year, teachers and librarians email me asking for a shortlist of contenders for the Newbery and Caldecott awards. The American Library Association (ALA) doesn’t provide one, but it’s easy to create your own with titles culled from positive reviews in School Library Journal, The Horn Book, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, or Kirkus Reviews. Complete award criteria can be found at http://ow.ly/aojVT.

ALA also offers a toolkit for those who want to hold their own mock Caldecott or Newbery elections. The benefit of participating in the Irma Black Award or established state readers’ choice awards is that they provide an existing short list of titles selected by trusted judges who choose based on the quality of certain titles and whether they’re age appropriate.

CBC/IRA

Children’s Choices, a popular national award produced by the International Reading Association and the Children’s Book Council, is designed for teachers, librarians, administrators, and booksellers—as well as for parents, grandparents, caregivers, and anyone who wants to encourage young people to read for pleasure. Although educators and booksellers are the final arbitrators of their short lists, the titles are derived from best-seller lists and retail sales figures (http://ow.ly/aokyz).

Discussion and voting

When discussing the finalists with your students and getting them ready to vote, try including math and graphing skills as they tally the class votes. This year, our teachers integrated Yaccarino’s All the Way to America into a larger social studies curriculum. Teachers can also discuss privacy issues when students collect the ballots, as well as concerns such as respecting others’ opinions and the impact of peer pressure.

Now what

Imagine your students getting just as excited about books as people do about the Oscars. You can make it happen by using the world of children’s and young adult literature. A lesson based on a children’s choice award will get children and teens just as thrilled about reading as librarians are. Now is the time to start planning a curriculum at your school. There’s no better gift than knowing that their opinions count. And they do.