Caldecott Honor Roundup: Ain’t Burned All the Bright, Berry Song, Choosing Brave, and Knight Owl

This year’s Caldecott honor books explore a range of moods from wistful to whimsical.

Ain’t Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Jason Griffin. Atheneum, 2022, 384 pages.

Recommended for: ages 12-up

The much-honored author teams up with his best friend and former roommate to create this meditation on being confined to home while a pandemic rages and a black man is slowly choked to death on a street in Minneapolis. Yes, there are conflicting reports about just how George Floyd died, but a black family quarantined in their apartment knows only what they see on TV. The unnamed protagonist takes a kind of verbal snapshot in three “breaths”—three very long sentences spread out over the pages of a moleskin notebook, illustrated with cutouts, pencil sketches, and emotive paintings. As his own father coughs and coughs in the bedroom, our narrator wonders what is left “when the whole world is wheezing and worry is like a knit sweater worn in summer.” But his father’s face still shines with love: it “ain’t burned all the bright.” With love, may he will recover.

More a meditation than a narrative, this book deserves at least two readings.

Overall Rating: 4

Berry Song by Michaela Goade. Little, Brown, 2022, 32 pages.

Recommended for: ages 5-10

“On an island at the edge of a wide, wide sea, Grandma shows me how to live on the land.” The small girl, member of the Tlingit tribe and native of wild Alaska, is learning of the land’s bounty as her grandmother passes on the wisdom of their ancestors. Each season brings its blessings, beginning with salmonberries “that strum the first notes of berry song” and ending with cranberries just after the first frost. Goade, who illustrated the Caldecott-winning We Are Water Protectors, writes a gentle narrative to the softly glowing illustrations. An extended Author Note details her personal experience on Sitka Island, growing up where her parents and great-grandparents lived. The repeated mantras in praise of “the land” need some thoughtful discussion about Who created the land and its bounty.

Choosing Brave: How Mamie Till-Mosley and Emmett Till Sparked the Civil Rights Movement by Angela Joy, illustrated by Janelle Washington. Roaring Brook, 58 pages.

Recommended for: ages 10-15

Mamie Carthan’s family moved north from Mississippi during the Great Migration years, settling in Argo, Illinois. Mamie was smart and ambitious, but married too soon to an amateur boxer named Louis Till. The marriage produced one son, “who entered the world the hard way”—bruised, scarred, and swollen. In spite of recommendations that he be placed in an institution, his mother brought him home and raised him with love. And alone, after Louis Till enlisted in the army and never came back. A bout with polio left her boy with a stutter, but otherwise he was lively and adventurous. Mamie was uneasy about his going to visit relatives down south, but she let him board the train, and everyone knows what happened to Emmett Till in Mississippi.

Choosing Brave tells a hard story that’s not for the very young. The comparison of the “bruised, scarred, and swollen” baby with the scarred and swollen body of the murdered 14-year-old is heartbreaking, but artfully told, with full credit to Mamie’s faith and determination to make something positive of her son’s death. The effective illustrations use symbolic touches, bold black lines, and earth tones achieved by layers of tissue paper. The Author Note fleshes out the story with details for more mature readers.

NOTE: Choosing Brave is also a Robert F. Sibert honor book (for excellence in nonfiction) and a Coretta Scott King New Talent Illustrator Award winner.

Overall Rating: 4.5

Knight Owl by Christopher Denise. Little, Brown, 2022, 40 pages

Recommended for: ages 4-10

“Since the day he hatched, Owl had one wish. To be a knight.” He dreams in tapestry colors of bravery and cleverness and comradeship. But it seems no more than a dream until a knight shortage developed at the castle. He applies to knight school, “and to everyone’s surprise,” especially his skeptical parents, “he was accepted!” Though small and feathery, he works hard for his knighthood and performs his service on the Knight Night Watch admirably. Until the night the knight discovers why so many knights kept disappearing from the castle night watch.

In the face of grave danger, Knight Owl keeps his cool and uses brains over brawn to meet the challenge. Ordinary friendliness helps, too. Little knight-fanciers (and their parents) will be totally charmed by the gorgeously-detailed, medieval-themed artwork tinged with whimsey. Enjoy the knights roasting marshmallows over brazier fire—at night, of course.

Overall Rating: 4.25

This review originally appeared at Redeemed Reader on April 20, 2022.

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