Newbery/Caldecott 2025: Spring Prediction Edition

Now now. Don’t give me that look. You knew this day was coming, and if you’ve seen these before then you know that I like to split them into quarters. Plus with all the early Spring weather I’ve been seeing this year, I was just itching to start the ball rolling into the 2025 award season. Yeehaw!!

So! If you’re new here, here are the rules. I come up with a list of titles that I think will win various ALA youth media awards. Then you tell me what I’m missing or why I’m wrong and we all get a better sense of what to read for the next nine months. Simple!

How’s my track record, you ask? MIXED! Decidedly MIXED! Look, I can show you. I keep track every year as to how well this very very first post does, like so:

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2008 spring predictions: I get one Caldecott right (How I Learned Geography)

2009 spring predictions: I get two Newberys right (The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and The (Mostly) True Adventures of Homer P Figg)

2010 spring predictions: I get one Newbery right (One Crazy Summer)

2011 spring predictions: I get one Newbery right (Inside Out and Back Again)

2012 spring predictions: I get two Newberys right (The One and Only Ivan and Splendors and Glooms), and one Caldecott right (Green).

2013 spring predictions: I get two Newberys right (Doll Bones and One Came Home) and one Caldecott right (Mr. Wuffles).  But pride goeth before the fall.

2014 spring predictions: Zip. Zero. Zilch.

2015 spring predictions: I get two Newberys right (Echo and The War That Saved My Life)

2016 spring predictions: Zero correct, though the commenters do mention two books that would go on to win.

2017 spring predictions: I got one Caldecott right, and that just happened to be the ultimate winner (Wolf In the Snow).

2018 spring predictions: I got one Newbery right (The Book of Boy).

2019 spring predictions: I got two Caldecotts right (Going Down Home With Daddy and Undefeated) and one Newbery right (The New Kid by Jerry Craft).

2020 spring predictions: I got one Caldecott right (Outside In by Deborah Underwood, ill. Cindy Derby) and one Newbery right (Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley).

2021 spring predictions: I got two Caldecotts right (Unspeakable and Watercress) and one Newbery right (Too Bright to See).

2022 spring predictions: I got one Caldecott right (Knight Owl) and one Newbery right (The Last Mapmaker).

2023 spring predictions: I got two Newberys right (The Eyes and the Impossible and Simon Sort of Says).

What does this tell us? Well, looking at the numbers, I appear to have predicted at least one book correctly since 2016. Not too bad!

Now I’m going to tell you right here, right now, that I’ve not been seeing much in the Newbery category quite yet this year, for a variety of reasons. So don’t be too weirded out when you see how paltry my selections are.

Let’s go!!

2025 Caldecott Predictions

Being Home by Traci Sorrell, ill. Michaela Goade

You’ll see a couple familiar names that have won Caldecotts before on today’s list, and that starts with the one and only Michaela Goade. Her Caldecott gold for We Are Water Protectors made history, as she became the first Indigenous artist to win the Caldecott Award (from her website she’s, “An enrolled member of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, Michaela’s Tlingit name is Sheit.een and she is of the Kiks.ádi Clan (Raven/Frog) from Sheet’ká.”). She’d go on to get another Caldecott Honor for Berry Song as well. I actually like her work on this latest book, Being Home, better than either of her previous wins (which is saying a lot). The book features just the right mixture of artistic and technical prowess alongside a legitimately heartfelt story with great writing. As Kirkus put it, it is, “An evocative, heartwarming testament to the power of home and community.” Worth a deep dive.

Joyful Song: A Naming Story by Lesléa Newman, ill. Susan Gal

I won’t lie. I’ve been lying in wait, plotting and plotting over the years in the hopes that at some point Susan Gal would illustrate JUST the right book, and allow me to submit her as a potential Caldecott winner. And this year? Success!! How is it that she’s never won before? It’s a mystery, but what’s not a mystery is the talent behind this latest. An ideal Caldecott winner is one that manages to mix artistic skill with a great text. But you know what gets Caldecott committees to vote on a book after they’ve tried and failed time and again to come to a decision? Heart. The book that thumps them hard in their feelings is the one that will ultimately rise to the top. And it’s difficult to thump harder than Newman’s story here. In an America where LGBTQIA+ titles are banned with chilling regularity, maybe awarding a book from the woman who jump started publishing way back in the day with Heather Has Two Mommies has more than a bit of merit.

Jump for Joy by Karen Gray Ruelle, ill. Hadley Hooper

Hadley Hooper? You’ve been holding out on us, girl. Seriously, this is a little masterpiece that catches the average reader by surprise. It’s a wonderful example of a story that’s been done a hundred times but now hits you in a whole new way thanks in large part to both the effervescent writing on Ruelle’s part, and Hooper’s joyous free-for-all in the art. In this book, Hooper helps tell the story of a girl who wants a dog and a dog that wants a girl by mixing collaged art from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries alongside vibrant paints. The black and white images aren’t there by chance either. Until Joy (the girl) finds Jump (the dog) and vice versa, their efforts to “make” friends of their own out of these images feels colorless. Even if you aren’t a dog person, you’re going to really enjoy this.

My Block Looks Like by Janelle Harper, ill. Frank Morrison

I’m not giving up on Frank Morrison getting his much deserved Caldecott something someday. It isn’t like the man hasn’t been racking up the awards over the years. He has a slew of them! But somehow the Caldecott has always veered away from his incredible style. Now, like any illustrator, when Morrison really and truly feels a work, that’s when he puts his back into it and creates something thoroughly special and unique. And that’s the feeling I’m getting from his work alongside Harper’s writing. No one creates movement on a page the way that he does, and these images are practically electric with the vibrancy of his paints. One of his finest works to date, and that’s saying something.

Touch the Sky by Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic, ill. Chris Park

Everyone loves a newbie. That person who hasn’t been around all that long and just bursts onto the scene with color, light, and power. You know who else likes newbies? Caldecott committees, that’s who. They love rewarding fresh faces, and Chris Park (though he’s done the occasional book of his own) can still be considered relatively fresh. It helps quite a bit that the text of this book gives the man some free range. Even so, as I mentioned in my review of it, Park is taking a setting we’ve seen portrayed many times before on the picture book page (a playground) and imbuing it with a lot more life and flavor than anyone would expect of it. In the end, this is worth keeping your eye on.

Two Together by Brendan Wenzel

Finally, welcome to the one to beat. I like all the books listed here today, but Wenzel’s book is going to be the one that has tongues wagging this year. With good reason too. I’ve heard some folks refer to this as a companion book to his previous Caldecott Honor title They All Saw a Cat. I adored that book, but I suspect that what we have here is a title that could potentially surpass its predecessor. I would love to see Wenzel finally get the shiny gold he most definitely deserves. And this book, with its incredible shifting styles combined with the amazing evolution of its characters, may be the one we’ve all been waiting for.

2025 Newbery Predictions

Black Girl You Are Atlas by Renée Watson, ill. Ekua Holmes

Do I put all my eggs in one basket? Very well, then I put all my eggs in one basket. It isn’t that I haven’t been reading books, it’s just that though I like a lot of what I’ve read, I haven’t gotten that shiny Newbery feeling for much of anything. Not yet. So far, only one single, solitary book has given me that shiver, and it’s the one you see before you now. Now Ms. Watson won a Newbery Honor back in 2018 for Piecing Me Together. And I’ll be the first to state that I get real squidgy when YA novels win Newberys. But this book really works for anyone ten and up as far as I’m concerned. Though teens are occasionally addressed directly in the book, I didn’t get the feeling that anything on these pages was inappropriate or even directed away from younger readers. Plus, the writing, man, the WRITING! Where has this woman been hiding this poetry all these years? If the Newbery goes to distinguished writing, I’ve yet to see the book to compare to this one. I am all in. ATLAS for the win!

And what about you? What have you read that you just adored this year and think, even this early in the game, has a chance at something shiny? Tell me! Particularly if you’re seeing anything Newbery-ish.

Filed under: Newbery / Caldecott Predictions