Lucinda Whitehurst loves books, but that doesn't fully explain her recent drift in nighttime reading.
"The Lion & the Mouse," "14 Cows for America" and "Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem" are just a few of the children's picture books she has taken up with. Personally, I'm acquainted with neither Billy Twitters nor his problem, but Whitehurst can tell you all about him and it.
Whitehurst, Lower School librarian at St. Christopher's School, was chosen to serve on the national committee that will select the winner of the 2010 Caldecott Medal, the prestigious award given annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.
The 15-member panel will hold its final meetings next week in Boston at the American Library Association's winter conference. The Caldecott awards -- the first-place medal and a number of runner-up "honor" books -- will be announced Jan. 18.
It's a big deal to win a Caldecott -- named in honor of Randolph Caldecott, a 19th-century English illustrator -- and it's a big deal to be chosen to serve on the committee that selects the winners. To Whitehurst, who has worked as a school librarian for 16 years and also teaches children's literature for the University of Virginia, "it really is a dream come true."
It also has been a lot of work.
For the better part of the past year, Whitehurst and the other members of the committee have read, studied and critiqued -- and then read, studied and critiqued them again and again -- hundreds of books, many of them creatively conceived and gorgeously illustrated. Narrowing the field hasn't been easy.
Whitehurst keeps boxes of books at St. Christopher's, where she has asked students for their appraisals; she has stacks more at her home, where her teen children have weighed in with their evaluations.
"It's a huge responsibility," Whitehurst, who lives in western Henrico County, said of serving on the panel. Committee members take very seriously their task, wanting to make certain they pick a great book -- for those who trust the Caldecott seal on the cover when they buy a book and for the illustrators whose work they are considering and whose future careers they might very well shape.
On a more basic level, Whitehurst said committee members have a very public pulpit from which to share their devotion to books with parents, teachers, librarians and, ultimately, children.
When my children were young, I always noticed books bearing Caldecott seals. You knew they'd be good -- books like "The Polar Express" and "Where the Wild Things Are."
But my connection with Caldecott goes way back. One of my favorite picture books as a child was "Make Way for Ducklings," written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey, a sweet story of a family of ducks finding their way around Boston, and the 1942 Caldecott Medal winner.
Of course, the award didn't mean much to me when I was 4 or 5 years old and I sat mesmerized as Captain Kangaroo (if you don't know who I'm talking about, ask your parents) read it on the air. All I knew was the story and illustrations were great, and wasn't it cool that police officers stopped traffic for the ducks to cross a busy city street?
Years later, I read the same book to my children when they were small, and years after that we traveled to Boston, making sure to visit the Public Garden where part of the story took place. We rode the swan boats pictured in the book, and generally ventured back into a fond corner of childhood.
It's the sort of lifelong connection, Whitehurst said, that great books -- particularly great children's books -- are so good at making.
She likens books to mirrors, windows and doors, reflecting our own experiences or giving us entry to places and people we might otherwise never know. She also believes this:
"I don't think you ever outgrow picture books."
Contact Bill Lohmann at (804) 649-6639 or wlohmann@timesdispatch.com. Follow him at http://twitter.com/wlohmann.
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