Getting the Picture

The Caldecott Medal, presented annually by the American Library Assn., honors the best picture book of the year and is regarded as one of the most important prizes in children’s literature. The medal was awarded this year to SMOKY NIGHT (Harcourt, Brace: $15; ages 5 and up), illustrated by David Diaz and written by Eve Bunting. Inspired by the Los Angeles riots, “Smoky Night” tells the story of one young boy’s experience of the violence, alienation and--ultimately--reconciliation of a similar riot, while Diaz’s striking acrylic paintings evoke the style and troubled spirit of Picasso’s classic “Guernica.”

The selection of “Smoky Night” is significant on a number of scores. While the award usually goes to an established artist, this is Diaz’s first picture book (Bunting, on the other hand, has written 150 books in her 25-year career). Second, the bold choice of subject is a departure for a picture book and introduces an element of topical immediacy and social conscience into a genre that has typically been more placid. Last, both illustrator and author are Californians, and the award thus tacitly acknowledges the growing importance of the creative community here to the world of children’s books.

Another of these West Coast talents is Erica Silverman, whose latest book is DON’T FIDGET A FEATHER (Macmillan: $14.95, ages 4 to 7). To determine who is “the one and only, true and forever champion of champions,” Duck and Gander hold a series of competitions, one of which--a freeze-in-place contest--almost proves their undoing when a hungry fox happens along and sees a compliant dinner in the two contestants who are so determined to win they won’t even “fidget a feather.” Silverman has written a witty story that demonstrates a keen understanding of childhood psychology and the inherent sense of competition that informs friendly rivalry. S. D. Schindler’s illustrations are equally engaging and his characters, though true to their animal selves, are bursting with personality.

Another Californian, author-illustrator Janell Cannon, also has a new book: TRUPP: A Fuzzhead Tale (Harcourt, Brace: $15; ages 4 to 8). Cannon’s first book, “Stellaluna,” was an enormous success, winning the 1994 Booksellers Book of the Year award. Unfortunately her second book is more problematic. The eponymous Trupp is an imaginary catlike creature called a Fuzzhead who journeys over the red cliffs of his home to see the world. Arriving in an urban environment, he is befriended by a wise bag lady named Bernice. The mixture of fantasy and gritty, urban reality is, at best, an uneasy one; the fantasy lacking magic and the reality hopelessly romanticized. Cannon is a gifted artist but she also fails in her efforts to create an authentic, newly imagined species in her Fuzzheads; they lack the personality she managed to give her real-world protagonist, the bat Stellaluna, and the necessary verisimilitude to persuade our imaginations to accept their existence.

In COUNTING JENNIE (Carolrhoda: $14.95; ages 4-8), written and illustrated by Helena Clare Pittman, Jennie Jinks is a compulsive counter who is kept so busy toting up the confusion of animals, vegetables and minerals she encounters on her way to school that she is almost late for her first class--which is math, of course! Young readers will be stimulated to count along the way with Jenny and to sort out the wacky confusion of figures in Pittman’s watercolor pictures, and teachers will welcome this title in whole language classrooms.