It’s kind of annoying that I didn’t do THIS blog post first, instead of this one… so if you care, read the earlier one first!

I’ve just finished tallying the 4th and 5th grade votes for the Newbery and Caldecott… which was a little challenging, and many ballots were incorrect in one way or another. Let’s just say it’s been a learning curve for me, and the students, and I can’t wait to do it all again next year; a little differently!

I started this year by saying the kids would win if they could correctly guess the Newbery AND Caldecott Medal (not honor) and soon realised this was out of the reach of many students so modified the rules for the lower ES. It would have been better to have some sort of grand prize for anyone who could guess both, some bonus prizes for kids who could guess medals and honours, but overall, I should have just blitzed with the Caldecott’s across the board instead of getting kids to guess both; it’s been pretty tough.

I will be so excited if I actually CAN give away any giant hershey’s kisses, and I have plenty of regular ones too.

So here are the books the 4th and 5th graders thought would win the Newbery.

1 vote for Jinx, The Center of Everything and A Tangle of Knots

2 votes for Penny and her Marble and The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp

3 votes for The Water Castle, Rump, P.S. Be Eleven and Flora and Ulysses

4 votes for Zebra Forest (which I loved) Doll Bones, The Real Boy, The Year of Billy Miller (which I didn’t love) and Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library which Mrs Rekate and Mrs Lau loved and I haven’t read yet.

7 votes for Navigating Early which is brilliant, but I wonder if they will give the award to Clare Vanderpool again after winning so recently with Moon over Manifest in 2011.

9 votes for my favourite so far (and I am running out of time!) Counting by 7’s…

Check this post to see how the Upper Elementary cast their Caldecott votes…