JANE HENDERSON || ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH || JANUARY 2012

The glories of children’s literature will be highlighted Monday when the Caldecott, Newbery, Coretta Scott King and more than a dozen other book awards are announced.

It’s been almost 75 years since the first Caldecott Medal was handed out to encourage excellence in illustration of children’s books — and, in fact, it worked.

Publishing has changed since “Animals of the Bible” won the first Caldecott in 1938 and the Newbery went to “The Story of Mankind” in 1922.

Gentle, instructive tales are still around, and endearing animals abound. But not only have children’s books moved far beyond romanticized images of childhood, with chubby-cheeked tots and fluffy kittens, innovative works can make news or be transformed dramatically into another type of art, as “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” became this year’s acclaimed 3-D film “Hugo.”

With thousands of new children’s books published every year, the award-givers, the American Library Association, see everything from gritty realism to whimsical fantasies.

“It feels like we have a lot of everything,” says Kathleen T. Horning, director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She’s also the author of “From Cover to Cover,” a guide to evaluating children’s books.

“There’s a lot of inventiveness on the part of children’s book creators,” she said last week, talking by phone before her trip to Dallas for the library association’s annual meeting. >>READ MORE

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