The true purpose of the Geisel Children’s Book Award

Wrong to read a book aloud? How can this be possible? What’s up? Of course, it’s never a mistake to read a book aloud to young children. Sometimes, however, reading aloud can preempt other options for young readers, especially those youngsters just beginning to read independently. While this may seem like an insignificant point, it is a really important one for those of us who spent the better part of a year seeking out the very best books published for young readers to tackle on their own.

In the weeks following the announcement of the 2007 Theodor Seuss Geisel Children’s Book Award and Honor Books at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting in January, people began to tell me how much they loved the books my committee had chosen. They had immediately found them and read them aloud to groups of young children and to their own preschoolers at home. While every book award committee hopes for this kind of validation, I was disheartened to realize that these well-intentioned adults entirely missed the point of the award.

Administered by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), the Geisel Award is intended to showcase outstanding examples of books that children can successfully read independently. Established in 2006, this very new award equally honors both the author and the artist of an outstanding book for beginning readers. This audience needs texts that they can approach with success and accompanying artwork that they can also “read” for context clues and meaning.

The award terms are clear. The 2006 inaugural committee chair Caroline Ward drafted the manual, which states: “The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award is given annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year. The winner(s) are recognized for their literary and artistic achievements that demonstrate creativity and imagination to engage children in reading.”

The Geisel Award is named for the world-renowned author of books for children. As Geisel in his “Dr. Seuss” persona would say, “A person’s a person no matter how small.” He wrote, “Children want the same things we want: to laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained and delighted.” His books have long been a part of our popular culture. When Tiger Woods’ handlers are quoted as referring to Yertle the Turtle, most adults understand the reference. Brilliant, playful, and always respectful of children, Dr. Seuss books have charmed their way into the consciousness of four generations of youngsters and parents. In the process, they helped kids to read. Not listen to a book being read. Not being taught how to read. No, Dr. Seuss helped them to read on their own.

The 2007 Geisel Award Committee chose Laura McGee Kvasnosky’s Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways (Candlewick) as the winner, and Antoinette Portis’s Not A Box (HarperCollins), Karen Beaumont and Jane Dyer’s Move Over, Rover! (Harcourt), and Kate DiCamillo and Chris Van Dusen’s Mercy Watson Goes for a Ride (Candlewick) as honor books. They were carefully selected for formal recognition because they are real stories that children will be drawn to and call their own. No leveling. No labeling. No tests. These are books that children will want to read independently. That’s actually what the Geisel Award is all about. The excitement of reading an outstanding book—by themselves!

This year’s committee relied upon many sources of information and inspiration: our own experiences with the books and real children, the insights of our colleagues, and outstanding written guidance. The latter notably was a chapter in Kathleen T. Horning’s From Cover to Cover (HarperCollins, 1997) in which she explains why an ideal book for new young readers is a “perfect unity of form and content.” My own informal discussions with a small group of area public school teachers of children ages five through seven offered many a reality check balancing my own enthusiasm for this or that book eligible for the Geisel Award. They pointed out the overall difficulty or confusing layouts in so many books that were excellent for group or one-on-one sharing, but not commendable for young children to attempt reading to themselves.

The committee benefited from teacher Margaret Jensen’s careful analysis of the characteristics of books for this audience. She cited “rhythm, rhyme, repetition, a controlled vocabulary, a text with a clear context, and picture clues” as appropriate for beginning readers. She emphasized the importance of the placement of text on a page and helped us to realize that when the paper color offers little contrast, young readers have to work hard just to “see” the text. She pointed out that the physical aspects of a book are crucial to the success or failure of these beginning readers. We learned to make sure that there were white spaces between the words, that the text and the art matched, that the pictures helped to predict the text, and that the author used natural language, rather than an inverted kind of literary language.

Last spring I approached a kindergarten teacher and talked with her about what I was trying to learn as well as finding out how my presence in the classroom could be useful from her perspective. The children selected what they wanted to read aloud to me during one of the times when they had open choices. I became a busy volunteer listener, and by doing so I observed their levels of skill in reading books they had chosen. Near the end of the school year I brought several books eligible for the Geisel Award into the classroom. I said nothing about the Award, or that these books were of special interest to me. That’s when I discovered how some of the books generally thought to be perfect for children who are beginning to read independently were actually difficult—even for the most skilled readers in that class. I continued to spend time in public schools last fall, when I visited first and second grade classrooms.

Geisel Committee member Cyndi Giorgis also spent time in classrooms last year observing children’s responses to some of the eligible books. She asked herself, “Is this humor age appropriate?” She noted that what we found funny as adults was often not what children found humorous, and vice versa.

We learned a lot from the children, as well as from our reading and discussions with colleagues. We began thinking about the books we were taking seriously for the award as “authentic literature,” as opposed to texts written and illustrated to instruct, test, and move new readers along to the next skill set.

When our committee phoned Jane Dyer she remarked that she was a former teacher, and so when she received Karen Beaumont’s manuscript, she knew it was perfect for young children to read independently. Megan Lambert has written about the complex “dance between picture books and words” experienced by both young listeners and young readers as they seek to construct meaning. Dyer’s artwork shows her understanding of that “dance.” We knew that, too, when we selected Move Over, Rover! and when we chose to honor Not a Box.

Barbara Chatton, a 2007 Geisel Committee member, has made a careful, helpful, and extremely important analysis of the books honored in 2006 and 2007 by the Geisel Award process in the Spring issue of Journal of Children’s Literature. She points out why there has been such a variety of types of books selected by this process during its first two years, and she looks forward to the future selections with the hope that they, like the books written and illustrated by Theodor Seuss Geisel, will be lively, interesting books that will attract children who are beginning to read.

As the years ahead add newly honored books to the Geisel Award/Honor Book list, there will be many other perspectives on excellence for distinguished writing complemented by distinguished artwork. The list of formally honored books will grow each year, and other articles will assist us all to understand exemplary books young children can read independently with success and with pleasure. Real books.

Read the Geisel Award and Honor Books aloud to the children in your lives and libraries and classrooms, if you wish. But don’t miss the chance to encourage children to read them aloud to you!

"Start at the Beginning: A Conversation with Margaret Jensen about Books for Beginning Readers" conducted by Tana Elias as part of a series titled "Meet the Experts." www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/authors/experts/jensen.asp