My Caldecott challenge: Although these Caldecott winner and honor books are not, for the most part, books I’ve read aloud to my son, I still found them interesting. A few I had strong negative opinions of; they show that even books that earned the Caldecott award do become dated!
The 1975 Caldecott winner, Arrow to the Sun by Gerald McDermott, is a Pueblo Native American Indian tale, with bright geometric illustrations. The story is somewhat interesting, and I only wish I knew more about what it means to the Pueblo Indians: I felt a bit lost at the end.
I didn’t love the illustrations; they remind me of early computer graphics (although it should be noted that the book indicates that the art was produced by gouache and ink). It just wasn’t my style, but I suppose the geometric approach was appropriate given the folkloric subject.
