2023 Mock Caldecott

Here is everything you need for a Mock Caldecott 2023 at home, in the classroom, or at your library! Get your Free Printable Score Sheets and the 2023 Caldecott Contender Picture Book List to get started.

One of our favorite activities in January is to participate in a Mock Caldecott. This is a fun and engaging book activity for families, school classes, homeschool groups, and libraries to participate in! 

You can see all of our past Mock Caldecott activities here. 

This year, the official 2023 Caldecott Winners will be named on Monday January 30th, which means it’s time to start reading our Mock Caldecott Book List! (We always do our Mock Caldecott in January, but really you could do it any time you want – it’s always fun!) 

THE CALDECOTT AWARD

The Caldecott is awarded to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published in the preceding year, as determined by a panel of judges.

In order to be eligible for the Caldecott award, the artist must be an American resident or citizen and the book must be published in the United States, or a U.S. territory. 

The criteria the panel of judges use to determine the most distinguished picture book are as follows: 

1. Excellence of execution in artistic technique
2. Excellence of pictorial interpretation of story, theme, concept
3. Appropriateness of style of illustration to the story, theme concept
4. Delineation of plot, theme, characters, setting, mood or information through pictures
5. Excellence of presentation in recognition of a child audience 

MOCK CALDECOTT 2023

For this Mock Caldecott 2023, I have a list of Picture Book titles rumored by all the best librarians and picture book publications to be Caldecott contenders. I also created simple printable score sheets along with a separate sheet to tally them up and score your top five picks. 

The criteria I used is based on the official criteria, but it’s a little more kid friendly: 

1. Art technique (is it good art?) 
2. Does the art match the story? (In simple terms, if it’s a happy book do the pictures reflect that? Or, if it’s a sad book, do the pictures convey sadness?) 
3. Is the art important to the story? (Does the art show you additional details or ideas that you can’t get by reading the words alone?) 
4. Is the presentation creative? 
5. Is it appealing/engaging to kids? (Will kids like this book?) 

We have our stacks of books here and we’re ready to get started! I sincerely hope that the official winner is one of the books on our Mock Caldecott list, but every now and then a surprise book wins and that’s fun too! 

We’ll be on Instagram ( @somethewiser ) on Friday, January 27th to share our winners before the official ALA announcement. 

HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE MOCK CALDECOTT

We’d love to have you join us! To participate just print off the score sheets below that best fit your needs.

Then, gather books at your local library, read them and use the score sheets to rate and rank your favorites. 

Enter your email below for a SCORE SHEET and the MOCK CALDECOTT BOOK LIST: 

If you’re participating in our Mock Caldecott 2023, comment here or tag me on social media @somethewiser . I’d love to see and share your predictions and favorites!