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THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST ILLUSTRATED CHILDREN'S BOOK AWARD: A Concise History
By Eden Ross Lipson
*Adapted from an essay in The New York Times Book Review, November 18, 2002.
Art is powerful and universal and picture books are, in a real sense, the first formal art children are shown. They study it carefully. Watch a baby or young
toddler with a favorite, poring over a detail—a cat or a cloud. Listen to preschoolers, after their lights are out, telling themselves the stories they love, describing pictures, laughing at jokes. Even if the kinds of books
they like change as they grow, affectionate memories of art they absorbed so intensely remains, and waft up unexpectedly.
Every autumn for half a century, The New York Times Book Review has asked three judges to a daylong deliberation, selecting from among the illustrated books for children published during the calendar year and choosing what they consider the best.
The modern juries always include: a librarian who works with books and children and has a sense of what happens when stories are read aloud; a critic with broad
experience and a practiced eye; and an artist, usually a winner in a previous year.
Their task is very loosely defined. They are not limited to any particular kinds of art, nor are they asked to evaluate the text, if there is one. There's no
requirement that the artist live in this country (as there is, for example, for the Caldecott Medal) or even that he or she be alive. There's no actual prize, although the winners receive a framed certificate with a drawing
done by a previous winner.
The forms that books for children can take have largely been shaped by the startling richness of contemporary illustration and by the sheer range of techniques
available. Modern color reproduction and printing have made drawings, watercolors, oil painting, gouache, collage, photography, woodcuts, computer-generated images, and other forms look better and better.
Although it is nowhere set in stone, the judges generally pick ten titles for The Times list. The list has includes some of every illustration form, or so it seems.
The work of a single artist encompasses the range of postwar American childhood experience. Maurice Sendak indisputably dominates the Book Review's
list and the public consciousness of children's books in the second half of the twentieth century. His second book, A Hole is to Dig was on the very first list in 1952, and The Nutcracker, in 1984, was his
twentieth appearance. In between are those great anchors of American experience: Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Outside Over There.
But The Times list has regularly identified newcomers who have gone on to outstanding careers. Among the debut books cited have been David Macaulay's Cathedral (1973); Chris Van Allsburg's Garden
of Abdul Gasazi (1979); Rainbow Rhino (1987), the first book both written and illustrated by Peter Sis; Faith Ringgold's Tar Beach (1991); Anita Lobel's Sven's Bridge (1965); Lane Smith's Halloween ABC (1987). The Maid and the Mouse and the Odd-Shaped House, the
first book written and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky, was on the list in 1981, and in 2002, he appeared for the fifth time with Knick-Knack Paddywhack!, the first book with moving parts to appear on the list.
Eden Ross Lipson is the children's book editor of the New York Times and author of The New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children (Third Edition/ Three Rivers Press 2000).
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