Collecting Newbery & Caldecott Award-Winners

One of the first questions I field when lecturing about children’s book collecting is “Where do I start? How do I know what to collect?” It’s a legitimate concern for anyone starting out. The range of children’s books is so wide, the options are so diverse, that it’s hard to know where to begin. Series books? Pop-ups and movables? A particular author? Illustrator? There are no wrong answers, of course (except, perhaps, for book club editions), but focusing your buying helps both your budget and bolsters your expertise.

 

For those looking for high-points…books of exceptional quality that will likely retain both their literary and monetary value…it would be difficult to recommend anything better than the annual Newbery and Caldecott Award-winners. For the past nine years, I’ve been giving first edition, first printing copies of each year’s Medal books to my grandchildren at holiday time.  Not only has it created a library of top-notch reading material for them, sure to be enjoyed for years to come, but…if they treat them gently…will represent a valuable investment by the time they reach adulthood.

 

Since 1922 (for the Newbery) and 1938 (for the Caldecott), the American Library Association has selected and awarded the best-written (Newbery) and illustrated (Caldecott) book for children published the preceding year. In addition, a few notable Honor Books are annually recognized in each category.  A group of experienced librarians are appointed each year to make the selections and…though there are often nay-sayers and controversies…they’ve done a remarkably good job overall.

 

Of the hundreds of thousands of new kid’s books published each and every year, how many are really worthy of acquisition and will pass the test of time? Once you winnow out the vampire and zombie titles, the throw-aways based on television cartoons or internet games, the cookie-cutter series books, and those of limited artistic or literary merit, you’re left with a solid couple of hundred books of quality. The Award committees serve as the library, parent, and children’s communities best friend and confidante, reading and evaluating each title and coming up with a small handful of the very best of the very best.

 

Do they make mistakes? Of course! Madeline and Charlotte’s Web were named Honor Books rather than receiving the Caldecott  and Newbery Medal and Curious George is completely missing. Many Honor Books are more deserving (or at least have weathered better) than that year’s Medal-recipient. And yet…taken as a whole…these relatively few titles represent a remarkably accurate history of children’s publishing through the 20th century, reflecting work by many of America’s most accomplished illustrators and authors.

 

The gold (Award) and silver (Honor) stickers that festoon the front covers of the Medal books have raised some questions among collectors. Does a book that displays a sticker constitute a true first edition? To my mind, at least in many instances, the answer is unquestionably “Yes.” The stickers are provided to libraries and bookstores after the award announcements are made and can be applied at that time to copies of the books on their shelves. It’s savvy merchandising! If a true first edition happens to be in their care, it gets a sticker. Of course, if a later printing is there too, it also receives one. The opposite is true as well: not every copy of an Award book lacking a sticker is a true first edition. The proof is in the book, not in the sticker. Still, there are some collectors who prefer a true first edition without a Medal sticker; the earliest state of the book available. Each collector determines where to draw the line.

 

There are several resources available to learn more about the Award books and additional avenues for collectors. The American Library Association issues comprehensive guides to all the Newbery and Caldecott Award and Honor books and updates them every few years.  There’s also a wide range of supplemental books that cover the honorees speeches, uses of the Award books in the classroom, and biographies of the Caldecott and Newbery authors and illustrators. Many collectors also look for copies of the programs distributed at the Award banquets and (earlier) cassette tapes and (nowadays) CD’s of the Award speeches.

 

And it continues. Every year there will be new Award and Honor books to add to a growing collection. Which brings us to this year’s winners and our sincere congratulations to Caldecott-winner Brian Floca for Locomotive (Simon and Schuster) and Newbery-winner Kate DiCamillo for Flora & Ulysses (Candlewick Press).

What's a First Edition?

There was a time when "first edition" had a straight-ahead unambiguous meaning. John Carter, in his ABC for Book Collectors, says, "Very, very roughly speaking, this means the first appearance of the work in question, independently, between its own covers." When I first started collecting children's books (back in the mid-eighties) and selling them (in the early nineties), all reputable dealers assigned the term to mean the same: the very first printing of the book.

Recently, the use of "first edition" has been watered down to include virtually any printing of a particular title. On many auction sites (and I'm talkin' about you, Ebay) one sees things such as "first edition, nineteenth printing" and "probable first edition, seemingly very early printing" and so on. Here at Wonderland Books (and at many other respected dealers), we don't engage in such word play. When we say "first edition" we mean "first edition, first printing," the original appearance of the work in question.

There's a good reason for that, particularly for those interested in children's literature and especially for collectors of illustrated books. The quality of the illustration in the very first printing of picture books for children is often overseen by the artist him or herself and will not see the light of day until it passes muster. As a book is reprinted, the task of plate alignment and color fidelity becomes more routine, printing plates (especially for books published in the pre-digital age) tend to wear down, and there can be very noticeable changes (and not for the better!) in print quality. Take a look, for instance, in the difference in the title page of the D'Aulaires' Caldecott-winning 1939 Abraham Lincoln . The first image is from the first edition and the second image is from an early reprint:

 

 

Abraham Lincoln by Ingri & Edgar Parin d'Aulaire. First edition.

Abraham Lincoln by Ingri & Edgar Parin d'Aulaire. First edition.

Abraham Lincoln by Ingri & Edgar Parin d'Aulaire. Early reprint.

Abraham Lincoln by Ingri & Edgar Parin d'Aulaire. Early reprint.

See what I mean?  

There are instances, of course, in which later editions or printings are still collectible. An author or illustrator's signature (or original illustration) often outweighs a first edition designation as does a first illustrated edition, an association copy and so on. But as a general rule of thumb, real value lies in true first edition copies and that's why they constitute the vast, vast majority of our offerings. 

Determining what makes a true first edition changes from publisher to publisher and era to era and that's the stuff of another blog entry, but rest assured that we've done the dirty work for you and that books designated as "first edition" at the Wonderland 100 site are true firsts.