Caldecott Winners

This wordless picture book, Tuesday, is written and illustrated by David Wiesner. This book's target audience is Elementary students. The great thing about wordless picture books is that they can be read by children in kindergarten and they can also be read by adults. 


Summary: This story takes place on a Tuesday night. Frogs have the power to fly around town on their lilly pads. They fly past a man in his kitchen eating his sandwhich and fly through clothes on a clothesline. The frogs then fly through the window of a sleeping women's house and begin to watch the TV she left on. At 4:38 in the morning, the frogs have a scary encounter with a dog. On one page, the frog seems frightened by the single flying frog coming towards him and the next page is the dog running scared with an army of flying frogs following close behind. Then the sun begins to rise, and the frogs begin to fall from their lilly pads. They have to hop back to the pond where they live and while sitting on their floating lilly pads the frogs appear bored. The police and the search dogs in the town are puzzled by the lilly pads scattered around the neighborhoods. At the conclusion of the book, it is a week later and frogs begin to fly, which could mean the possibility of a sequel. 

Rating: I would give this book 5 ***** out of 5 stars. 


I absolutely love wordless picture books. They can be used for any grade level and can be read by students with different reading abilities. I will definitely use these books in my classroom. They allow children to use their imagination and put their own words to the pages. These books are great tools for children who are hesitant readers and writers.

This wordless picture book entitled The Lion and The Mouse is written and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. This book also has an extremely large target audience. Children of all ages and abilities as well as adults. 


Summary: The book starts with a mouse scurrying across and open field, almost getting eaten by an owl. The mouse unknowingly resting on the lion, the lion wakes up and grabs the mouse in his claws. Instead of eating the mouse the lion decides to let the mouse go. The mouse runs back to its home where it greets it's babies. Then a group of hunters enters. They are setting up traps to catch lions. The lion stumbles into their trap and is hoisted into the air by a rope net. He lets out a gigantic RRROAAARRR! that the mouse hears. The mouse runs to the lion's aide. The mouse chewed through the rope freeing the lion. 

Rating: I would give this book 5 ***** out of 5 stars. 


This book is also great to use for children who are hesitant readers and writers. I also love this book because it teaches children that anyone can be your friend and that if you do something nice for someone they may do something nice for you in return when you truly need it. I love wordless picture books and as a future teacher I will use them as often as possible. 

This fiction picture book titled The Three Pigs is written and illustrated by David Wiesner. This book's target audience is children between 1st and 4th grade. 


Summary: This is the story of The Three Pigs,  but not the conventional fairytale we are all used to hearing. The book begins as the fairytale does, the first pig builds a house out of straw and the wolf comes threatening to blow his house down if he is not let in. The wolf huffs and he buffs and he blows the house down, and along with blowing the house down he blows the first little pig right out of the story! The wolf is confused and moves onto the next pigs house which is made out of sticks. After he threatens to huff and puff and blow their house down the first pig comes from outside of the story and tells the second pig to join him. The two pigs find the third pig and discover that they can mess up the pages of the story they were in. The pigs proceed to fold the pages into a paper airplane and fly around. After a crash landing, one of the pigs discovers a page from the fairytale Hey Diddle Diddle. They jump into that story and decide to invite the cat to come with them! After that, the pigs and the cat jump into another story and save a dragon. All of the animals return to the brick house to defeat the wolf. They all become friends and live happily ever after. 

Rating: I would give this book 5 ***** out of 5 stars. 

This is a great book for children who enjoy reading fairy tales. This would be a useful book for an opening or mini lesson, after reading this book children could take their favorite fairy tale and create an alternate ending. This is by far one of my favorite picture books that I will utilize and recommend to students. 

This fiction picture book is entitled Smokey Night.  It is written by Even Bunting and illustrated by David Diaz. This book's target audience is students between 2nd and 5th grade. 

Summary: This book is about the race riots that occurred in the past. It is the story of a young boy and his mother looking out the window of their apartment. They are witnessing these riots occur and the young boy is confused as to why these horrible things are happening. His mother explains the situation to him and they witness various shops being vandalized. After a while they decide to go to bed. In the middle of the night the mother wakes up her son. Their apartment building is on fire, they flee the apartment leaving Jasmine (the cat) behind. The boy is very concerned about his cat's whereabouts. Firefighters arrive at their apartment and once again the boy asks about his cat. A women approaches the crowd informing them about a nearby shelter. The streets are destroyed. At the church shelter, the adults are talking about the horrific events while the young boy again asks about his cat. His mother shouts and his attention turns to a firefighter carrying his cat. Mrs Kim's cat is found as well. The cats are different colors and the firefighter tells the story of how the cats banded together to survive the flames. The cats then share a bowl of milk and the adults chat about how they thought the cats did not like one another and come to the conclusion that the two simply didn't know each other before this. 

Rating: I would give this book 4 **** out of 5 stars. 

I love this book for the history. It is a good book to incorporate into a history lesson about segregation and the times of the riots. It also teaches children that it doesn't matter what the color of your skin is, people can be friends and get along with one another. Maybe even help each other in times of need. This book also has very interesting illustrations, along with what is happening in the story whatever is talked about on that page is represented in the background. For example, one page talks about Mrs. Kim's grocery shop and the background is cereal. I really enjoyed this book and find it useful for history lessons in classrooms. 

This children's fiction book titled Where The Wild Things Are is written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak. This book's target audience would be students 1st-6th grade.                                          

Summary: The story begins with a little boy who is dressed up in his wolf suit making mischief, and his mother sends him to bed without any dinner. Max's room begins to turn into a forest and an ocean came by with a private boat for him where he sailed for a long time. He stumbled upon an island where the wild things were roaring and showing their claws. Max tells them to be still and tames them with a magic trick. The wild things were very scared and called him the most wild thing of all. They made him king of the wild things and the whole night they dance around the island. Max then demanded the wild things stop and go to bed. He was very lonely and hungry. He smelled something delicious in the distance and decided to relinquish his title as king. The wild things beg him not to leave but Max hopped in his boat and sailed away. He sailed into his own room and found his supper waiting for him. 

Rating: I would give this book 3 *** out of 5 stars. 

This illustrations in this book are amazing. This book could also be used to teach children about using your imagination and while you are using your imagination anything is possible. This could also be used to teach children about the unusual and amazing friendships that can be made everyday. After the book was made into a movie, I believe children will like to read this book and it will definitely be a part of my classroom.