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The following excerpt is from our Fall 2005 CBC Features issue on Awards & Prizes:
Awards & Prizes: A Horse of a Different Color: Developing the Critical Eye
by Jan LaBonty, Ph.D
My friend Carol owns an Angus ranch in a remote region of Montana, and being typical Montanans, they have half a dozen or so horses to move their cattle. Carol and I were driving by the pasture one day, and I made an admiring comment about Simon, one of the geldings. "He's such a handsome horse," I said. Carol surprised me by saying that he really wasn't at all attractive, and, piece-by-piece, she deconstructed the unknowing beast. He was too long-backed, he was paddle-footed and sickle-hocked, he didn't have a nice clean throat line, he was disproportionate, he was parrot-mouthed, and finally, the most damning statement for a horse I could imagine: he was pig-eyed. Suddenly, Simon appeared to me as the sorry animal he really was. A nice horse, yes, but handsome lad? Sadly, no.
I view horses differently since that day and I no longer sort them merely by color and size. Because of a brief lesson in horsiness and subsequent opportunities to apply and enhance my knowledge, I am a bit more discriminating. Likewise, children who have participated in the Children's Choices project (co-sponsored by the International Reading Association and the Children's Book Council) for two years come away from it all much more discerning judges of books and with a higher value of their own opinions. After reading hundreds of books and participating in the inevitable conversations with their peers, their understanding of what makes a book worthwhile is improved dramatically. Just like me and poor Simon, children can develop the critical eye.
The Children's Choices project essentially tells participants that their opinions matter. The students in our schools took their responsibility to select the top 100 titles each year very seriously; they functioned like junior library accountants preparing for a tax audit: judiciously keeping track of which books they had read, completing their ballots with care, and taking the time to write anecdotal comment they were sure someone would want to read.
When those books stay in the library, long after the project has moved on to another site, kids will continue to make a beeline for books with those telltale Tomie dePaola-designed stickers, the books other kids liked. Who better to judge? Students develop curiosity about the titles that will make the list in the following years, and librarians report that Children's Choices books are always the first ones off the library shelf. The "kid grapevine" is especially powerful, and participating students know that it is they, not teachers, parents, or librarians, who will choose the winners. •
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