Caldecott Medal Contender: Hello, I’m Here!

by Sam Juliano

The annual  Caldecott Medal and the runner-up “honor books” have followed a traditional path since their inception in 1937 though there have been tell tale signs that the norm has been slowly expanding to embrace graphic novels, mixed-media application and novel-sized works like The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Brian Selznick) and Bill Peet: An Autobiography, two works that won the Caldecott Medal and Honor respectively, which left the box defying the conventional picture book format.  The committees have shown a marked love for wordless books and even startled the book community when a book with controversial themes, This One Summer by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki not only broke through the graphic novel embargo but brought attention to subjects long held as taboo in the Caldecott realm.  Yet there is still one barrier to cross.  Though photographic elements have appeared in such books as Smoky Night (which won the Caldecott Medal in 1995) and Knuffle Bunny (which copped a 2005 Honor), and other winners like The Right Word, Radiant Child, Viva Frida and Trombone Shorty contain mixed-media art where photographs are utilized, there has yet to be wholesale recognition for photography as a legitimate form for children’s picture books.  Over the last several years some of the most extraordinary beautiful picture books have showcased this all-too-often underestimated form of artistic expression, one to some that is seemingly devoid of talent or held in low esteem when put alongside work crafted from the hand.

The distinguished author-artist April Pulley Sayre has fostered seasonal appreciation with the camera-made images that compliment her fleeting prose.  Full of Fall for example conveys the depth of that colorful time of year more resonantly than the vast majority of books that replicate that burnished time between summer and winter that is popular with those with a sensory hankering.  And then there is that dynamic duo, Helen Frost and Rick Lieder who continue to expand a transcendent series initiated in 2012 with Step Gently Out and continuing with Sweep Up the Sun, Among a Thousand Fireflies, Wake Up and this past year Hello, I’m Here! which may be arguably the most resplendent collaboration of all between this this most gloriously economical of wordsmiths and the man who has not only redefined the capabilities of the camera but has taken his readers into intimate outdoor places, perhaps even upstaging real-life visitation which is always compromised by the nearly impossible proposition of having the subjects sit in for a photo shoot.  A master of light composition, crystal clarity and “in my living room” images, the photographer’s trenchant close-ups have paved the way for Frost’s indelible poetry gently voiced with sustained anthropomorphism.  In the prior books the focus was species-oriented by in Hello, I’m Here! the sand-hill crane are affectionately given a book of their own.  As a result of this more scene-specific strategy Frost and Lieder make this inspired effort more personal, more pointed, more attuned to the various nuances underling the sustenance of life.

Students familiar with the Arnold Lobel’s Caldecott Medal winning Fables will surely recall with fondness “The Pelican and the Crane” which tells the story of a gluttonous pelican who abuses the hospitality of a considerate crane.  The role of this majestic bird is also of the care-taking variety in Hello, I’m Here! which chronicles a chick’s birth and earliest activities as a living entity.  Housing a solid pastel green inside cover, the gorgeous feather-laden dust jacket is one of the most attractive of any picture book released in the year, and the Kelly green end papers fashioned from a birds-eye vantage point is equally resplendent.  But Lieder ups the ante even further with 2019’s poll position title page canvas, a double page spread of the crane hovering over its eggs that is documented in the most pristine of terms.  It’s getting crowded inside this egg.  I can’t flap a wing or stretch out a leg.  Two cranes with ubiquitous red manes and open beaks stand abreast of their soon to be young ones on river nests.  Frost effectively captures the claustrophobia of a chick nearing full term at a time when movement is no longer tenable.  Who’s talking to me?  Is it night or day?  I start to peck, and my shell falls away.  As helpless as Sylvester in a William Steig classic the crane-to-be is obvious to the outside world though the shell separation is announcing a new birth.  Lieder’s heightens a sense of urgency by angling in to document the mother crane’s florescent-eyed attendance at the nascency at the forefront of a sky blue expanse.

I’m out in the world – I don’t know where.  Mama?  Papa? Hello I’m Here!  Frost ushers in the fledgling sandhill crane chick with a wondrous burst of dislocation as the artist-photographer captures the new-born in such lucidity that a reader can almost feel the wood-chips composing the nest.  Could I stand up straight and tall?  Will my legs hold me?  What if I fall?  After making its debut in the raw Frost goes interrogative in framing a stream of uncertainty.  Young readers may realize that are still further along in command than a new born baby.  Lieder’s striking pictorial zoom is a model of intimacy.  In the wholly sublime Look, I’m standing!  One step.  Another.  Hey, who’s this?  Are you my brother? spread which attests to remarkable early-stage maturation the artist boldly chronicles a chick’s immediate kinship with its species.  He walks away.  Wait! I’m coming too.  I might be small, but I’m following you!  A green-yellow tapestry points up a searing contrast with the two chicks as Frost intimates that age in a negligible matter in the natural connection of progeny.

We flap our wings.  We try to dance.  Let’s go swimming – here’s our chance.  The poet frames the sandhill chick equivalent of baby’s first steps and earliest aquatic forays, a metaphor evoking the dance step.  Yet again Lieder presents in magnifying glass precision the tiny hairs growing on his subjects many and bodies in stunning wetlands. What made that splash? Jump in and see.  No! Snapping turtles! Stay close to me.  For the first time Frost denotes a red light when she notes that snapping turtles represent palpable danger, leaving closer companionship as the first step in staying safe.  Lieder’s airy wing spread urgently brings readers into this protective equation.  Mama, I’m hungry.  What can I eat?  Here’s a bug for your supper.  There’s a snail for a treat.  The eating process is given green-hued prismatic allure capturing the chick using its small beak to negotiate an an insect and snail for sustenance.  Hundreds of voices fill the sky.  At dusk a flock crosses the sky in a scenario that may for adult readers recall Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but what may amuse children most in the corresponding panel of the chick wondering how birds were able to take flight, knowing of course that its time will soon come.  We’ve been busy – Time for a rest!  Mama’s strong wings make a soft, warm nest.  Those more neutral on the “I love animals” front will find it hard not to be stirred by Lieder’s final double page spread which show the bonding of mother and child with the wing more re-assuring than a nest.  Again Lieder captures the crane’s feathered body with unquestioned authenticity, in fact the most unassailable of any evidence one can put forth.  And the red mane and delicate orange legs of the resting chick enrich the canvas.  A final epilogue explains much of what was previously visualized including the propensity of these species to lay two eggs at a time and how the parents alternate in protecting their young.  The walking, swimming, and eating sequences of course was major components of the narrative.  Frost and Lieder extend the narrative which includes the ever-present dangers to the species.

Lieder’s magisterial investigation into the inner workings of birth and the maiden activities of the sand hill chick is once again an ideal fit for Frost’s splendid economical poetry.  After reading through Hello, I’m Here on re-visitation you’d be hard-pressed to identify a single reason why this beguiling word -a marvel of poetry and the camera- isn’t on the final short list.  The time to break the ice with this kind of work is at hand, and this captivating and immersive experience makes for a persuasive plea.

A magical team: photographer Rick Lieder and poet Helen Frost

Note:  This is the twelfth entry in the 2019 Caldecott Medal Contender series.  The annual venture does not purport to predict what the committee will choose, rather it attempts to gauge what the writer feels should be in the running.  In most instances the books that are featured in the series have been touted as contenders in various online round-ups at children’s book sites, but for the ones that are not, the inclusions are a humble plea to the committee for consideration.  It is anticipated the series will include in the neighborhood of around 15 to 20 titles; the order which they are being presented in is arbitrary, as every book in this series is a contender.  Some of my top favorites of the lot will be done near the end.  The awards will be announced near the end of January, hence the reviews will continue until around the 22nd or so of that month.