2026 Mock Caldecott – My Top 10 Predictions

It’s time for my 2026 Mock Caldecott predictions! The Caldecott Award is given for a book’s illustrations. There is only one Caldecott Award book each year, but there can be any number of Caldecott Honor books.

Throughout the year, I read and track books I think might be contenders for different ALA awards. This year, I flagged 32 titles as potential Caldecotts. I have whittled that down to 10 in this post. Whew!

Briefly, some criteria for Caldecott are listed below. For more details, check out ALA’s Caldecott Medal page.

• Book is an original work published in the year before the award is given. All titles on my predictions list were published in 2025. The Youth Media Awards will be announced live and online on January 26, 2026. If you can, pull it up on a TV or screen in the library and let the students watch as the awards are announced!

• The book is a picture book for children. Side note: Graphic novels can also be considered picture books and are eligible for Caldecott, provided they are written for children up to age 14. I have one graphic novel in my prediction list!

• The book must be first published in the USA or a US territory. Publishing company must also be American.

• Illustrators must be US citizens or residents of the US or US territory.

All titles selected below are in one place on this Amazon list and Bookshop.org list.

The titles with a dark blue box around them are my top three! I’ve also got three “Honorable Mention” titles at the end of the list. These three titles might have been in my Top 10 if they were eligible for Caldecott. In all three cases, the illustrator does not live in USA.

If you are interested in international children’s author and illustrator awards, check out the Hans Christian Andersen Award. This one is only awarded every two years, and it honors the author or illustrator’s entire body of work, not just one title.

On to the 2026 Mock Caldecott!

This is a companion to All Because You Matter by Tami Charles. Bryan Collier’s colorful illustrations feature diverse elementary students on a school field trip to Hayden Planetarium in New York City.

I’m honestly not sure how this would work as a read aloud. There isn’t really a story – it’s a celebration of human innovation and of working together to bring about change.

Though professional reviewers recommend PreS-Grade 3 (as noted above), I would not personally read this aloud below Grade 2. With abundant rich vocabulary and abstract concepts, young students will enjoy the illustrations, but I don’t see most of them understanding the text well.

This is a companion to Love, by the same author-illustrator duo. The illustrator, Loren Long, wrote and illustrated The Yellow Bus, which was one of my top Caldecott picks for 2025.

This book features plenty of rich vocabulary and details in the illustrations. Click here to read my detailed review of Home.

Spanish version is linked on this Amazon list and Bookshop.org list.

This is the first of my three top picks for Caldecott this year! The Littlest Drop makes a great storytime read-aloud, both for the text and the illustrations.

When legendary picture book illustrator Jerry Pinkney passed away in 2021, he left behind lots of unfinished sketches for this fable. Pinkney’s son, award-winning illustrator Brian Pinkney, added more details and color to his father’s illustrations for The Littlest Drop.

The Caldecott can be awarded posthumously, so this book is eligible.

Need a library storytime to go with The Littlest Drop? Check out my Storytime here!

This is an adorable story of the caterpillar-to-butterfly life cycle. The three stages in a butterfly’s life cycle – caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly – are each written and illustrated by a different person.

The illustrations are sweet, but they also show the dangers small animals face in nature. Both the caterpillar and their new mouse friend help each other survive.

Color palettes change from pink to yellow to blue in the three sections. Though it is divided into three sections, this is a normal-length picture book that is great for spring storytime.

Pair with Kelly DiPucchio’s Becoming Charley (2023).

This gorgeous title is available in English and Spanish versions. I read the Spanish version, but I still had to do many translations due to the poetic language – I had not yet been exposed to many of these beautiful words!

Two siblings enjoy the hot desert and a brief rainstorm before Mama whistles for them to come home.

A colorful and unique book for storytime about the desert, imagination, and the wonder of nature.

Spanish version is linked on this Amazon list and Bookshop.org list.

This book features a cute gray kitty trying to take a nap. A little mouse runs by, and kitty chases. Set in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the cat and mouse run through nine famous pieces of art. Information about each piece, plus a photo of the original artwork, is appended.

Now for the coolest part… when the cat and mouse enter each artwork, the medium for that art becomes the cat and mouse. This is so perfect for art teachers!

Also appearing at the end is an illustrated description of how Brian Lies created the pictures in the book. I always love when illustrators include this information because it shows young readers how much work goes into creating picture books.

This is book #2 of my top three Caldecott 2026 contenders!

This is a solo work from author/illustrator Shawn Harris, Caldecott Award-winning illustrator of Have You Ever Seen a Flower (2022). Let’s Be Bees features an adult and child pretending to be different kinds of animals and objects, including bees. The illustrations have a “fuzziness” about them that reminds me of fuzzy bee bodies.

Colorful and sweet, this is an imaginative read-aloud for the youngest readers. I love the simple and brightly-colored crayon illustrations!

This is a nontraditional pick, but hear me out! This is a 288-page graphic novel. Though graphic novels are not the traditional pick for Caldecott, they are still eligible according to the “up to age 14” criteria for Caldecott. The only time a graphic novel has won the Caldecott Medal was in 2008, for Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

So why do I think this is a great – if nontraditional – pick for Caldecott? It’s just so different!

Full disclosure: I may be biased for this title. My dog makes the same facial expression as the wolf on the front cover. It’s uncanny.

This is an extended poem and stream-of-consciousness story of five wolves who travel the world and talk about art. Even the words of the story are incorporated into the grayscale illustrations. It gives readers so much to look at and think about. Even adult readers will find much to sink their teeth into.

The artwork reminds me of Brian Selznick and Shaun Tan.

Also, the author and illustrator, Peter McCartney, is a previous Caldecott Medalist for Hondo & Fabian (2002). It’s not fair, but it does seem like once an illustrator wins a Caldecott or Honor, they may be more likely to win again in the future.

I read the e-book version of this one, but I want reread the printed version. The e-book just does cannot do it justice, and I’m betting this is the kind of book where you notice new things every time you read it.

The only reason this isn’t one of my top three picks on this list is because it’s a nontraditional choice. I think it deserves to win, but I don’t think it actually will simply due to the graphic novel format.

A young girl misses her grandfather, who has recently passed. It’s now Día de los Muertos, and she just does not feel like celebrating.

Oh, artwork! This one is so gorgeous. It includes lots of details to ponder in the backgrounds. Crow imagery symbolizes the connection between the living and the dead, which is present in many cultures.

Don’t miss the foldout pages of the parade! Students will want to spend some time looking at this and other pages in detail. Great for read-alouds – particularly with upper-elementary students – for Día de los Muertos.

This is the story of an unlikely friendship between a young ballerina and a polar bear. This mostly-wordless picture book also includes fold-out pages. Polar bear facts appear on signs throughout the book, which is also available in Spanish.

Author/illustrator Eric Velasquez previously won the Coretta-Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent (The Piano Man, 2000) and the Pura Belpré Illustrator Award (Grandma’s Gift, 2011).

Spanish version is linked on this Amazon list and Bookshop.org list.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The three books below might have been in my Top 10 Mock Caldecott titles, but they are not eligible to win. For each book below, the illustrator is not American or a US resident. This is a requirement for Caldecott consideration.

I wanted to recognize these books anyway! They are so beautiful, and I highly recommend them for elementary libraries.

This colorful book is shows a young girl’s imagination and the wonder of observing nature. The morning after a rainstorm, a young girl ventures out and looks into the puddles left behind.

She imagines a whole world of animals and plants inside the puddles, which also reflect her own image back. She sees little sparrows hiding in the bushes, eats a juicy apple, and admires dandelions growing in sidewalk cracks.

Read this beautiful story aloud before a nature walk to encourage students to observe nature’s details.

Caldecott contenders must be illustrated by Americans, either citizens or current residents.

This wordless picture book shows a family – first two, then three people – enjoying their home on a cliff by the sea. They swim in the water, watch the dolphins, and fish from their boat. As the seasons pass, the sea levels rise, threatening the house.

The family builds a raft for the house, then follows the dolphins to a new piece of land. There, neighbors help them hoist the house onto dry land. Safe once again, the family is happy.

The illustrations capture the joy of family, nature, and home, both before and after that home is threatened by rising seas. I especially love the illustrations that show the imminent arrival of the baby – two chairs become three, baby clothes drying on a line, the silhouetted joy of mama and new baby.

Author and illustrator Guojing is Chinese and lives in Canada. This book, while worthy, is unfortunately not eligible for Caldecott.

Another gorgeous selection that does not qualify for Caldecott. The illustrator Myungae Lee is Korean and lives in South Korea. It was also first published in South Korea, not the USA.

This is about a mother and child sitting in traffic in Seoul’s Seogang Bridge. As rain pours down on the cars, they spot a tiny kitten darting in and out of traffic.

Many readers will identify with the frustrated rush to get to school or work in the pouring rain. Many readers will feel the worried glances of the drivers when they spot the little kitten on the bridge. Only one car stops to rescue the kitten, leaving readers to ponder what they would do in that situation and why no one else got involved.