It has been challenged for containing “violence and horror.” Prior to that, Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold, which won a 1992 Caldecott Honor was challenged for “racial stereotype & the adults drink beer.” The last notable Caldecott Honoree to be so scrutinized was A Smokey Night by Eve Bunting and illustrated by David Diaz, which won the 1995 Caldecott Medal. It’s been over twenty years since a Caldecott title has been the subject of so many challenges. The appendix contains lists of all Caldecott and Newbery titles that have been reported as being challenged.

Thanks to Books Under Fire: A Hit List of Banned and Challenged Children’s Books by Pat Scales (ALA Editions, 2015), I was able to find answers. But it was the Newbery titles that repeatedly filled my search results. Online searches resulted in popular titles like Maurice Sendak’s 1964 Caldecott Award Winner Where The Wild Things Are and his 1971 Caldecott Honor Winner, In the Night Kitchen. How long has it been since a Newbery or Caldecott Honoree has been challenged in connection with its status as an award winner? I wanted to know publication dates related to book challenges, rather than how often something was challenged. Image courtesy of First Second BooksĪfter reading this article, I was curious.

The 2015 Caldecott Honor winner, This One Summer, was not only the first graphic novel to be honored by the Caldecott Committee, it was also one of the most frequently challenged graphic novels that the CBLDF found itself defending during 2015. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) published an article in December 2015 summarizing their top ten graphic novels that they defended that year from potential challenges.

This one summer