Fuse 8 n’ Kate: 2024 Caldecott Contenders

“Ah, Kwame. He’s going to get tired of winning Caldecotts one of these days.”

As track records go, I don’t want to brag but the Fuse 8 n’ Kate podcast does a particularly good job each and every year of selecting potential winners. Just look at last year’s picks. Of the three books we discussed one (Hot Dog) became an Award winner and one (Knight Owl) became an Honor. This year, once more, I’ve selected three books for discussion. Kate requested that one of them be “controversial” but I suspect that it won’t be the one that you think it is. But what’s this? Do Kate and I disagree on the final winner? See if you can figure out why we split on our final vote in this year’s discussion of Tomfoolery by Michelle Markel, illustrated by Barbara McClintock, There Was a Party for Langston by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Jerome and Jarrett Pumphrey, and An American Story by Kwame Alexander, illustrated by Dare Coulter.

Listen to the whole show here on Soundcloud or download it through iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, PlayerFM, or your preferred method of podcast selection.

Show Notes:

Here are the fabulous tattoos from Hippos Go Bezerk that Jerrold Connors sent to me:

And here’s the new Sandra Boynton book that is clearly a sequel to the aforementioned Hippo book:

First up, There Was a Party for Langston. Right off the bat, Kate felt bad for not knowing some of the folks on the endpapers. I assured her that my knowledge, much of it, comes from picture book biographies, so I have an advantage there.

Kate notices that the word “BLUES” fits in so nicely into this art.

Having only seen the galley for this book before, I didn’t know whether or not the photograph of Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka would actually make it to the final product. Happily, IT DID!

I love that Kate’s chosen tattoo from this book is “this dog, chillin'” which is original to Caldecott himself.

Yeah. I dunno. Can anyone tell me why this man’s head is exploding? I just don’t know what story this came from.

Kate points out that the 15-year-old in this book actually LOOKS like a 15-year-old (unlike the similarly aged young man from last week’s podcast).

You want London? You got it, baby!!

Kate noticed that Barbara McClintock put this image in the book. Naturally, she had to find out what was at this address. The answer? This is the Randolph Caldecott Blue Plaque that you can see in London. Go and see it!

Kate wondered if the amount of backmatter pages for this book was a record. I maintain that the MOST backmatter still belongs to Frybread. Do you agree?

I’ve read An American Story multiple times, but it was only when I had Kate look at it I realized the pairing of the bound hands to the modern free questioning hands on subsequent pages

This page slew Kate. How did Dare Coulter make these reflections?!?

Kate Recommends: Taskmaster

Betsy Recommends: The Murderbot Diaries

Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate