Ms. B's Book Blog: Third Annual Zervcott Medal!

We started reading from a list of 24 potential Zervcott winners while celebrating Picture Book Month in November. We discussed Caldecott criteria and rated each of those 24 books on how well the illustrations stood up to criteria and captured student interest in December. We narrowed down to a Top 10 and students from K-5 selected their 3 favorite contenders in January. Finally, my second graders served as a Zervcott committee and doled out the medals and honors by ranking the surviving 7 books.

Here's how it all played out.

The initial list:

Mr. Tiger Goes Wild - Peter Brown

Brave Girl - Michelle Markel, ill. Melissa Sweet

The Matchbox Diary - Paul Fleischman, ill. Bagram Ibatoulline

Flora and the Flamingo - Molly Idle

Exclamation Mark! - Amy Krouse Rosenthal & Tom Lichtenheld

The Day The Crayons Quit - Drew Daywalt, ill. Oliver Jeffers

The Watermelon Seed - Greg Pizzoli

Bluebird - Bob Staake

Big Snow - Jonathan Bean

Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great - Bob Shea

Building Our House- Jonathan Bean

The Dark - Lemony Snicket, ill. Jon Klassen

Hello My Name is Ruby - Philip C. Stead

The Beginner’s Guide to Running Away From Home- Jennifer Larue Huget, ill. Red Nose Studio

A Splash of Red - Jen Bryant, ill. Melissa Sweet

The Boy and the Airplane - Mark Pett

Warning Do Not Open This Book - Adam Lehrhaupt, ill. Matthew Forsythe

Journey - Aaron Becker

Train - Elisha Cooper

Locomotive - Brian Floca

Mr. Wuffles - David Wiesner

Little Red Writing - Joan Holub, ill. Melissa Sweet

On A Beam of Light - Jennifer Berne

The Boy Who Loved Math - Deborah Heiligman, ill. LeUyen Phan

There was a lot of love for many of these books. 616 rankings later, these 10 came out on top:

As all of the book appreciation was happening, 2nd graders also designed medals for the winning books. This year's Zervcott committee had a tie for the medal, while awarding 3 honors. Here's what they loved:

Zervcott Honor #3