The 2026 Mock Caldecott List

This marks my ninth year of hosting a (very low-key) Mock Caldecott list and I’ve loved having so many of you participate in reading and picking your own winners from the Caldecott nominees (there are no official Caldecott nominees – this list is full of books getting a lot of buzz and who I think would be nominated if there were nominees), and then comparing them to the official Caldecott winners chosen by the American Library Association each winter.

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

If you’re unfamiliar with the Caldecott award, it’s an award given to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book published in the previous year (“most distinguished” according to the panel of judges made up of librarians and other people involved in children’s literature that year – you have to be elected or appointed to be one of the judges).

Each year, the winner (and any chosen Honor books – usually 3 or 4)) are awarded in January or early February at the American Library Association conference and watching the live stream of the announcements 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 announcements were made on MLK Day, I was out of school and was able to be at the announcements in person which was one of the highlights of my professional life. You cannot IMAGINE the energy of thousands of children and young adult book lovers packed in a room ROARING with joy when their favorite books snagged awards.

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

I’ve loved having so many of you join in the fun with your classrooms or families over the past few years and if you’d like to do it again this year, I’ve come up with a list of Caldecott predictions for 2026 and have checked out as many of them from the library as I can.

I printed off score sheets with a list of all the titles of the Caldecott books I chose and then as we read them, we rate them according to the Caldecott criteria.

I spent a long time reviewing books that are getting buzz as Caldecott contenders, so your odds of at least one of them being picked as a Caldecott winner or a Caldecott honor book are pretty good.

I made a score sheet with each of the books and then the four criteria:

1. How well is the art executed? (Basically, is this good art?)
2. How does the art match the story? Is the style and medium a good fit for the tone and feeling of the storyline or theme? (In a nutshell, if it’s a happy, cheerful book, does the art reflect that, or if it’s a serious, sad book, does that art match that?)
3. Is the art important to the story? (Do you get insight into the story, the characters, or additional details through the art that you wouldn’t get if you were just reading the text without any art?)
4. Does it have a child audience in mind? The award isn’t for the most popular book, but it does need to have children as the primary audience.

On the score sheet, there’s a spot after every book to score it on each piece of the criteria between 1-5. Once we read all the books, we tally up all the scores and determine our Caldecott winner, plus pick a few Caldecott Honor books (there is technically no limit to how many Caldecott Honor books can be chosen, but it’s usually 2-4).

If you’d like a copy of the score sheet with all the Caldecott nominee book titles on it, pop in your email address below and it’ll come straight to your inbox!

The other thing I always reminded my students of and do the same with my kids now is that it’s okay if the judges choose different things than you do. Some years, you might quirk an eyebrow at their picks and other years they might be right in line with the books you picked as winners. That’s part of the fun – if we all had exactly the same taste and liked exactly the same things, there wouldn’t be any suspense about the picks because we’d all choose the same titles.

Here are the 40 books I put on my Mock Caldecott predictions list this year (this is a big list because it’s so disappointing when your library only has a handful and I wanted to increase the odds that you could get a fat stack of options to read and rate together! For younger kids, this can be WAY overwhelming, so feel free to pick 5-10 and just compare those. There are no rules that say you need to read all 40+!

2026 MOCK CALDECOTT BOOK LIST

1. Aggie and the Ghost by Matthew Forsythe
2. Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka Con la Papa : Join the Quest with Peru’s Famed Scientist and Potato Expert by Sara Andrea Fajardo, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal
3. Anything by Rebecca Stead, illustrated by Gracey Zhang
4. Big Enough by Regina Linke
5. A Book of Maps for You by Lourdes Heuer, illustrated by Maxwell Eaton III
6. Broken by X. Fang
7. Cat Nap by Brian Lies 
8. Cranky, Crabby Crow (Saves 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 Fish by Neil Sharpson, illustrated by Dan Santat
12. Dragonflies of Glass 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. A Forest Song by Kirsten Hall, illustrated by Evan Turk
16. The Gathering Table by Antwan Eady, illustrated by London Ladd
17. A Gift of Dust by Martha Brockenbrough, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal 
18. Good Golden Sun by Brendan Wenzel
19. The History of We by Nikkolas Smith
20. The Hole by Lindsay Bonilla, illustrated by Brizida Magro
21. How Elegant the Elephant by Mary Ann Hoberman, illustrated by Marla Frazee 
22. How Sweet the Sound 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. A Knot is Not a Tangle by Daniel Nayeri, illustrated by Vesper Stamper
26. Let’s Be Bees by Shawn Harris
27. Making Light Bloom by Sandra Nickel, illustrated by Julie Paschkis
28. Moon Song by Michaela Goade
29. Nunu and the Sea by Isabella Kung 
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. Stalactite and Stalagmite : A Big Tale from a Little Cave by Drew Beckmeyer
34. Soy Sauce by Laura G. Lee
35. Tea is Love by Adib Khorram, illustrated by Hanna Cha
36. To See an Owl by Matthew Cordell 
37. Where Are You, Brontë? by Tomie dePaola, illustrated by Barbara McClintock
38. Where the Deer Slip Through by Katey Howes, illustrated by Beth Krommes
39. Your Farm, Your Island, and Your Forest by Jon Klassen

Looking for a printable copy of the Mock Caldecott list, pop in your email below!!

If you liked this post about Caldecott predictions for 2026, you might also like these other posts:

• The 2025 100 Picture Book List
• The 2025 – 2026 Reading Log
• 50+ picture books that have matching Yoto cards (so you can follow along while you listen!)