Dragons and Self-Love: Students Celebrate “Mock Caldecott” Winners and Diverse Voices in Children’s Literature

Every year the American Library Association awards one Caldecott Medal to the picture book with the best illustrations and several “Caldecott Honors” to runners-up. Over the past few weeks, our librarian, Mari Pongkhamsing, read Caldecott Medal contenders to elementary students, and they voted for their favorites to win a “Mock Caldecott Medal.” 

Julie Leung's book The Truth about Dragons, illustrated by Hanna Cha, won our students’ Mock Caldecott, as well as a real Caldecott Honor award. It also won the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association picture book award. It tells the story of a boy exploring his mixed White and Asian cultural heritage in a whimsical adventure through two forests. He learns about the fierce dragons of European legends and the majestic Chinese dragons, and that, as  Kirkus Review summarizes, “both worlds, though distinctly different, exist within the child and are open to be explored.”

Big, written and illustrated by Vashti Harrison, received Caldecott Honors from three of our classes and won the real Caldecott Medal this year. It tells the story of a girl struggling with how society sees her and learning to love herself no matter what.

In addition to voting to select the class’s award winners, students wrote brief summaries of the books and drew pictures inspired by the illustrations. Some of these are visible in the photos here, along with the yellow ribbons (most votes from a class) and blue ribbons (honor awards for second and third most votes per class). The real Caldecott awards are shown, too (gold for the winner and silver for honors), along with others, like the Coretta Scott King Book Awards, which are given for "outstanding books for young adults and children by African American authors and illustrators that reflect the African American experience." 

It’s been exciting to see Ms. Mari nurture our students’ love of reading and admiration for diverse voices. We’re so appreciative of her and the authors and illustrators who make the world of children’s literature so powerful and enchanting. Looking forward to new books in 2024!

Exploring Culinary Creativity: Unveiling the “Secret Ingredient” in Our Elementary School Fried Rice Adventure

Our second through fifth graders recently made fried rice in gardening class, and as often happens when we do cooking lessons, parents have been eager to know what “the secret ingredient” was that made their children so excited about a healthy dish. Of course the real “secret” is that they were involved in the cooking, and often the growing and harvesting! But here are the ingredients, in case you want to recreate the dish at home:

• jasmine rice

• red, orange, and yellow bell pepper

• one sweet onion

• one egg

• 5–7 cloves of garlic

• carrots

• green onion

• ginger root grated or very finely diced

• green peas (frozen is fine)

• gluten free soy sauce

• coconut aminos

• sesame oil

• olive oil

• garlic powder

• black pepper

• salt

Sauté one onion and 5-7 garlic cloves in sesame and olive oil on low heat until browned. Add in diced carrots and diced bell pepper. Once cooked through, add the rice, egg, and all of the seasonings.

Teaching Patience

Hearing children repeat requests over and over can make adults feel dizzy—especially when saying “Please wait a moment” intensifies the volume of their demand. “I need scissors!” (louder) “I need scissors!” (louder and louder) No one wants children to shout their way to gratification. Yet in this fast-moving age, children often seem to acquire a false assumption: “If you heard what I’m saying, you wouldn’t pause an instant before satisfying my needs!”

Parents often teach children to say “Excuse me,” but as we all know, chanting these words doesn’t develop consideration. Children’s assertive behaviors are so common that they seem like inevitable parts of their growth and development, with hoped-for abilities to wait emerging some time in the future. In this more enlightened and forgiving age, it’s parents who demand patience of themselves—certainly a good role model—when desires prove overwhelming to a child.

The challenge of teaching children to develop quiet self-control when they are asked to wait is a challenge we can all work on together. Holding the perspective that we have to cooperate to meet everyone’s needs in a household or a classroom provides a good foundation. “Look, Molly wants scissors too, and so does Tim. If you sit quietly, I can get the scissors out.”

We can also let a child know after the first request that we have heard what he’s saying. We can get down on the child’s level and say, “I’ve heard you. But I need you to wait. If you keep shouting, I won’t be able to do what you ask.” If we can’t comply, we can honor the child’s request by saying, “I wish I could give you scissors (ice cream, a video, a ride on my back), but I can’t right now. Maybe you’d like to draw a picture.”

Since we are so bombarded with noise, it’s hard not to react children’s intense requests with irritation: “Don’t talk to me like that.” However, if we think back to our own childhood, we can remember that we only wanted gentle reassurance that we wouldn’t be invisible to our caregivers and that our needs wouldn’t be neglected. We can expand children’s ability to self-regulate even when they feel a need intensely by commenting, “Look how quietly you’re waiting for what you want.”