Annal:1993 Randolph Caldecott Medal

Mirette on the High Wire

Emily Arnold McCully

• 1993 Caldecott winner
• Score: 10.43

Mirette lives in a boarding house surrounded by actors, dancers, jugglers and mimes. Her life is filled with exciting stories and fascinating people. None as magical as the stranger Mirette discovers crossing the courtyard on air—a tightrope walker. Mirette becomes the stranger’s pupil and learns to walk the wire.

Features brilliant watercolor and gouache paintings, reminiscent of the French Impressionists. 1993 Caldecott Medal winner.

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales

Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith

• 1993 Caldecott honor
• Score: 6.43

Wonderfully quirky, this book breathes new life into staid children’s stories. In these irreverent variations on well-known themes, the ugly duckling grows up to be an ugly duck, and the princess who kisses the frog wins only a mouthful of amphibian slime.

Seven Blind Mice

Ed Young

• 1992 Horn Book-picture winner
• 1993 Caldecott honor
• Score: 16.42

“It’s a pillar,” says one. “It’s a fan,” says another. One by one, the seven blind mice investigate the strange Something by the pond. And one by one, they come back with a different theory. It’s only when the seventh mouse goes out-and explores the whole Something-that the mice see the whole truth. Based on a classic Indian tale, Ed Young’s beautifully rendered version is a treasure to enjoy again and again.

Working Cotton

Sherley Anne Williams, Carole Byard

• 1993 Caldecott honor
• Score: 6.43

This child’s view of the long day’s work in the cotton fields, simply expressed in a poet’s resonant language, is a fresh and stirring look at migrant family life. “With its restrained poetic text and impressionist paintings, this is a picture book for older readers, too.”—Booklist