Mock Caldecott Winner 2025: The Squish!

The American Library Association awards the Caldecott Medal to the artist of "the most distinguished American picture book for children." This year, I read 8 picture books with Caldecott buzz to kindergartners and first-graders, and we narrowed the list down to 2 finalists. 

With nearly 60% of the vote, the Garden City Mock Caldecott winner is The Squish, illustrated and written by Breanna Carzoo. 

Students shared their reasons for their choice, and explanations included: 

• It was cute. 
  
  
• He kept getting squished but getting back up. 
  
  
• Because the sand castle’s arms moved. 
  
  
• It was funny. 
  
  
• The sand castle kept falling down. 
  
  
• He broke and then he built himself again. 
  
  
• I liked the giant castle. It is about bringing yourself up.
  
  

Here are some of their illustration interpretations:

There Are Wockets in Grade 1 Pockets!

I like to have the kids create pages for our own version of mentor texts; they copy the structure of the model and add original words and illustrations. The latest edition of Dr. Seuss' There's a Wocket in My Pocket (Continued) by first graders has been added to our collection! You can preview below:

 

And the Winner Is ... (Mock Caldecott edition)

The American Library Association awards the Caldecott Medal to the artist of "the most distinguished American picture book for children." This year, I read 10 picture books with Caldecott buzz to kindergartners and first-graders. 

For our Garden City Mock Caldecott, 

135 students chose from among

3 finalists, and

1 came out on top with 

80 votes (59%):

100 Mighty Dragons, All Named Broccoli, 

illustrated by Lian Cho and written by David LaRochelle. 

Here are some reasons why: 

• All of them were named Broccoli
  
  
• Dragons are my favorite
  
  
• It's "mathy"
  
  
• Because I like the Mario and Luigi ones
  
  
• All the dragons went away
  
  
• 100 is my favorite number
  
  
• It had Elvis in it
  
  
• At the end 100 baby dragons come to join the one lonely dragon named Broccoli
  
  
• It has more activity and details than the other books
  
  
• She has so many babies
  
  
• Because of the flames
  
  
• It is very silly
  
  
• I like dragons because they breathe fire out of their mouths
  
  
• There was a million dragons!
  
  
• Because the 100 grow up and the 1 left becomes a mom
  
  
• It had my sister's name in it.

And some student art inspired by the book:

Three of These Things with Grade 1

A big part of information literacy is being able to recognize patterns and to categorize facts, sources, etc. We're starting to work on these skills in first grade.

The unit we are finishing up involves the original Three of These Things from Sesame Street. Original as in from the 1970s. I showed several sample videos to the kids, and they raised their hands as soon as they figured out what didn't belong. Here's one of them:

Then it was the students' turn to pretend they were segment producers and come up with their own "Three of These Things" example. Can you tell what doesn't belong?