Caldecott Medal Contender: Carl and the Meaning of Life

by Sam Juliano

A domino effect plays out in the narratives of three Caldecott Medal winners, One Fine Day by Nonny Hagrogian , Finders Keepers by William Lipkind and Nicolas Mordinoff, and Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears by Verna Aardema and Leo and Diane Dillon depicts the insect and animal world fielding questions from one chronic questioner.  A fox repeatedly asks for a favor so that his tail can be sewn back on after he absconds with a pail of a pail of milk; two canines try to solve the question about the rightful owner of bone by asking others and a small insect instigates a panic that is sustained as creature after creature is approached to reach the truth in varying conceits. In Deborah Freedman’s similarly cumulative  Carl and the Meaning of Life a field mouse innocuously queries the titular earthworm for his seemingly bizarre underground propensities, setting off a chain of events where the scheme of things is adversely affected after this inveterate truth seeker suspends his indispensable elemental role to investigate its significance.  Soon enough after Carl goes interrogative he finds that also his prospective respondents are busy supporting their own families or keeping up the own end of the bargain to help keep the world ecologically sound.  After trial and tribulation the now nomadic earthworm encounters a bereaved beetle who through its own manner of deprivation provides the long-elusive answer that sends its enlightened mercenary to again function profoundly so the world can maintain its equilibrium.

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Caldecott Medal Contender: A Stone Sat Still

by Sam Juliano

Prior to the release of Brendan Wenzel’s A Stone Sat Still, the last time a stone served as a metaphorical witness to changes in weather and the passage of time without the ability to impact the world around it occurred in the beloved Caldecott winning Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig.  Of course that stone, referred to in that acclaimed text as a rock, was the creation of supernatural forces summoned up by a wish and when the transference took place from life-force to boulder as a result of consternation fueled by the sudden appearance of a lion the Sylvester of the title, an anthropomorphic donkey, was cognizant of everything around it but was unable to act.  Wenzel, the extraordinarily gifted young maestro of several acclaimed picture books, and the winner of the Caldecott Honor a few years ago for the visionary They All Saw A Cat has followed up that picture book masterpiece with what is even a deeper perspective by exploring with documentary-precision the infinite possibilities surrounding a stone’s passage through time and of how practically every aspect of life emanates from the elemental and is part of the scheme of things.   Again mastering the complex pictorial process that brings together mixed media, cut paper, colored pencil, oil pastels and marker with computer negotiation, Wenzel’s art in a children’s level equivalent of Terrence Malick’s cinema with a probing, sometimes introspective prose narration and an existential undercurrent.

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