Casual Caldecott turned into quite a party! We had 22 people--kids and parents--gather to read, visit, and vote on a dozen of the year's best, most buzzed-about picture books. We weren't able to have a book-by-book discussion prior to voting, but the results sorted themselves out nicely nonetheless. We named five honor books (listed in alphabetical order by title): 

• Ask Me by Bernard Waber; illustrated by Suzy Lee
• Drum Dream Girl by Margarita Engle; illustrated by Rafael Lopez
• Float by Daniel Miyares
• The Bear Ate Your Sandwich by Julia Sarcone-Roach
• Water is Water by Miranda Paul; illustrated by Jason Chin

And we  had a clear winner:

Finding Winnie by Lindsay Mattick; illustrated by Sophie Blackall.

Finding Winnie is my favorite, too (sometimes my favorite doesn't even get an Honor at our house Caldecott: this was a first!). Congratulations to Sophie Blackall from all of us!