2026 Caldecott Mock List

Looking for a printable copy of the 2026 Mock Caldecott score sheet? Enter your email below and it will go straight to your inbox!

This marks my ninth year hosting a Mock Caldecott list (very simple) and I was thrilled to see so many of you participate in reading and selecting your own winners from the Caldecott nominees (there are no official Caldecott nominees – the list is full of books that got a lot of attention and that I think would have been nominated if there had been nominations), and then comparing them to the official Caldecott winners selected by the American Library Association each winter.

2026 Caldecott winners will be announced January 26 which means it’s time for the 2026 Caldecott Mock Book List (the live stream will be here if you want to see the winners announced in real time).

If you are not familiar with the Caldecott awards, they are awards given to the most outstanding American picture book artists published in the previous year (“most honored” according to a panel of judges made up of librarians and other people involved in children’s literature that year – you must be selected or appointed to be one of the judges).

Every year, the winners (and selected Honor books – usually 3 or 4)) are honored in January or early February at the American Library Association conference and watching the live broadcast of the announcement is one of my favorite things of the year.

When we lived in Boston and I was an elementary school librarian, ALA Midwinter was held in Boston (perfect timing!) and because the announcement was made on MLK Day, I got out of school and was able to attend the announcement in person which was one of the highlights of my professional life. You can’t IMAGINE the energy of thousands of children and young adult book lovers gathered in a room ROARING with joy when their favorite book wins an award.

I’ve done Mock Caldecotts as a graduate student, as a student librarian, and as an elementary school librarian and now it’s so much fun to do with the family and see how our choices match up with what actually won.

I’ve loved seeing so many of you join in on the fun with your classrooms or families over the past few years and if you want to do it again this year, I’ve created a list of Caldecott predictions for 2026 and have checked as many of them out of the library as possible.

I printed out a score sheet with a list of all the Caldecott book titles I selected and then as we read them, we rated them based on Caldecott’s criteria.

I spend a long time reviewing books that get attention as Caldecott contenders, so your chances of at least one of them being selected as a Caldecott winner or Caldecott honorary book are pretty good.

I created a score sheet with each book and then four criteria:

1. How well is the art executed? (Basically, is this good art?)
2. How does the art fit the story? Does the style and medium match the tone and feeling of the storyline or theme? (In short, if the book is happy and upbeat, does the art reflect that, or if the book is serious and sad, does the art match it?)
3. Is art important to the story? (Did you gain insight into the story, characters, or additional details through the art that you wouldn’t have gotten if you just read the text without any art?)
4. Does it take into account the child audience? This award is not for the most popular book, but must involve children as the main readers.

On the score sheet, there is a place in each book to score each section of the criteria between 1-5. Once we’ve read all the books, we tally up all the scores and determine our Caldecott winner, plus select a few Caldecott Honor books (technically there’s no limit to how many Caldecott Honor books can be selected, but it’s usually 2-4).

If you’d like a copy of the score sheet with all the Caldecott-nominated book titles on it, enter your email address below and it will go straight to your inbox!

Another thing I always remind my students and do the same with my kids now is that it’s okay if the judge chooses something different than you. In some years, you may be confused by their choices and in other years they may align with the book you chose as the winner. That’s the fun part – if we all had the same taste and liked exactly the same things, there would be no tension in choosing because we would all choose the same titles.

Here are the 40 books I included on this year’s Mock Caldecott predictions list (it’s a big list because it’s so frustrating when your library only has a few and I want to increase the chances of you getting a bunch of choices to read and rank them together! For younger kids, this can be overwhelming, so feel free to pick 5-10 and just compare. There’s no rule that says you have to read all 40+!

CALDECOTT MOCK BOOK LIST 2026

1. Aggie and the Ghost by Matthew Forsythe
2. Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka Con la Papa : Join a Quest with Famous Peruvian Scientists and Potato Experts by Sara Andrea Fajardo, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal
3. Whatever you do Rebecca Stead, illustrated by Gracey Zhang
4. Big Enough by Regina Linke
5. Map Book for you by Lourdes Heuer, illustrated by Maxwell Eaton III
6. Corrupted by X. Fang
7. Cat Nap by Brian Lies
8. Cranky, Crabby Crow (Saving the World) by Corey R. Tabor
9. Dawn by Marc Martin
10. Dear Acorn (Love, Oak) by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Melissa Sweet
11. Don’t Trust the Fish by Neil Sharpson, illustrated by Dan Santat
12. The Glass Dragonfly by Susan Goldman Rubin, illustrated by Susanna Chapman
13. Every Monday Mabel by Jashar Awan
14. Fireworks by Matthew Burgess, illustrated by Cátia Chien
15. Jungle Songs by Kirsten Hall, illustrated by Evan Turk
16. The Meeting Table by Antwan Eady, illustrated by London Ladd
17. Gift of Dust by Martha Brockenbrough, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal
18. The Good Golden Sun by Brendan Wenzel
19. Our History by Nikkolas Smith
20. Holes by Lindsay Bonilla, illustrated by Brizida Magro
21. How Elegant the Elephant is by Mary Ann Hoberman, illustrated by Marla Frazee
22. How Sweet Her Voice is by Kwame Alexander, illustrated by Charly Palmer
23. Imogen by Elizabeth Patridge, illustrated by Yuko Shimizu
24. In the World of Whales by Michelle Cusolito, illustrated by Jessica Lanan
25. Knots Not Tangles by Daniel Nayeri, illustrated by Vesper Stamper
26. Let’s Be Bees by Shawn Haris
27. Making Light Bloom by Sandra Nickel, illustrated by Julie Paschkis
28. Moon Song by Michaela Goade
29. What and the Sea nearby
30. Our Lake by Angie Kang
31. A Place for Us by James E. Ransome
32. The Polar Bear and the Ballerina by Eric Velasquez
33. Stalactites and Stalagmites: Big Stories from Small Caves by Drew Beckmeyer
34. Ketchup by Laura G. Lee
35. Tea is Love by Adib Khorram, illustrated by Hanna Cha
36. Seeing an Owl by Matthew Cordell
37. Where are you, Bronte? by Tomie dePaola, illustrated by Barbara McClintock
38. Where the Deer Slip Through by Katey Howes, illustrated by Beth Krommes
39. The World’s Best Class Plants by Audrey Vernick and Liz Garton Scanlon, illustrated by Lynnor Bontigao
40. Your Farm, Your Island, and Your Forest by Jon Klassen

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