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Caldecott Honor Book

The Caldecott Honor Books are runners-up to the Caldecott Medal, is awarded for the previous year’s most distinguished American picture book for children.

The award was named in honor of the nineteenth-century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott.

Learn more: official Caldecott Medal and Honor homepage.


Winners:

Four and Twenty Blackbirds (1937)

This is a compilation of longer traditional nonsense verse such as The Robber Kitten and Frog Went A-Courting. Many are quite violent.

Read online at Internet Archive.

1938

Author(s): Helen Dean Fish
Illustrator(s): Robert Lawson

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Seven Simeons: A Russian Tale (1937)

King Douda enlists the seven Simeons to help him find a bride.

1937
1938

Author(s): Boris Artzybasheff
Illustrator(s): Boris Artzybasheff

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Andy and the Lion (1938)

A little boy named Andy was interested in lions. On his way to school, he met a real lion with a thorn stuck in its paw.

1939

Author(s): James Daugherty
Illustrator(s): James Daugherty

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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938)

The classic tale of Snow White.

Read online at archive.org

1939

Author(s): Wanda Gág
Illustrator(s): Wanda Gág

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Wee Gillis (1938)

This is the story of how Wee Gillis decides whether to live in the Scottish lowlands like his mother’s family or in the highlands like his father’s people.

This is the second book by the author and illustrator of Ferdinand.

Read online at archive.org

1939

Author(s): Munro Leaf
Illustrator(s): Robert Lawson

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Wee Gillis (1938)

This is the story of how Wee Gillis decides whether to live in the Scottish lowlands like his mother’s family, or in the highlands like his father’s people. This is the second book by the author and illustrator of Ferdinand.

This is the limited edition: 525 copies bound in burlap and signed by the author and illustrator.

1939

Author(s): Munro Leaf
Illustrator(s): Robert Lawson

Details »

Cock-a-Doodle Doo (1939)

In this case it’s a rooster raised by a duck in a familiar story.

1940

Author(s): Berta Hader
Elmer Hader
Illustrator(s): Berta Hader
Elmer Hader

Details »

Madeline (1939)

The smallest of the twelve French orphans under the care of Madame Clavel wakes up one night with a tummy ache.

Read online at archive.org

1940

Author(s): Ludwig Bemelmans
Illustrator(s): Ludwig Bemelmans

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An American ABC (1941)

Each letter has a large illustration and a patriotic essay.

1942

Author(s): Maud Petersham
Miska Petersham
Illustrator(s): Maud Petersham
Miska Petersham

Details »

April’s Kittens (1941)

April’s cat Sheba has three kittens. But her father insists that theirs is strickly a one-cat household. April must give up three cats, but which ones?

1941

Author(s): Clare Turlay Newberry
Illustrator(s): Clare Turlay Newberry

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Nothing At All (1941)

When his two visible brothers are chosen as pets by a two children, their invisible brother realizes he must get to work and make himself visible so he too can become a pet.

1942

Author(s): Wanda Gág
Illustrator(s): Wanda Gág

Details »

Paddle-to-the-Sea (1941)

Explore the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence Seaway with Paddle.

Read online at archive.org.

1942

Author(s): Holling C. Holling
Illustrator(s): Holling C. Holling

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A Child’s Good Night Book (1943)

A first going to bed book.

Read online at archive.org

1944

Author(s): Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrator(s): Jean Charlot

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The Mighty Hunter (1943)

The mighty hunter skips school to go hunting, but an encounter with a bear makes him decide that he should work on his education.

1944

Author(s): Berta Hader
Elmer Hader
Illustrator(s): Berta Hader
Elmer Hader

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The Christmas Anna Angel (1944)

The Christmas Anna Angel makes Christmas cakes for Anna and her brother.

Read online at archive.org

1945

Author(s): Ruth Sawyer
Illustrator(s): Kate Seredy

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Little Lost Lamb (1945)

The little black lamb wanders off from the flock, but the shepherd and his dog go back up the mountain to find him.

1946
1946

Author(s): Golden MacDonald
Illustrator(s): Leonard Weisgard

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My Mother is the Most Beautiful Woman in the World (1945)

We don’t love people because they are beautiful. They are beautiful because we love them.

1946

Author(s): Becky Reyher
Illustrator(s): Ruth Chrisman Gannett

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McElligot’s Pool (1947)

You don’t know what you might catch when you go fishing in McElligot’s pool.

Read online at archive.org

1948
1948

Author(s): Dr. Seuss
Illustrator(s): Dr. Seuss

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Song of Robin Hood (1947)

Eighteen of the original ballads of Robin Hood are illustrated here. Most of them also have accompanying music.

Read online at archive.org

1948

Author(s): Grace Castagnetta
Anne Malcolmson
Illustrator(s): Virginia Lee Burton

Details »

Blueberries for Sal (1948)

The adventures of a little girl and a baby bear while hunting for blueberries with their mothers one bright summer day.

Read online at archive.org.

1949

Author(s): Robert McCloskey
Illustrator(s): Robert McCloskey

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