Remember my Wondrous Winter Mother’s Curriculum post earlier this month? I mentioned in that post that I planned on going to a mock Caldecott Award night. This is my fourth year of going, so I now consider it a personal tradition of mine, as part of making January jolly. I love that it fits with what I had already decided as a fabulous theme for January, that of books, reading, and reading aloud.

This all started when I heard a fellow homeschooling mom, Shauna Bird Dunn, say at a homeschooling conference that she has a personal tradition of reading The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease every January.

“What a great idea!” I remember thinking at the time.

The more I’ve thought of that as a personal tradition for a homeschooling mama the more I love it.

It fits right along with hygge, that of being cozy in winter with books, family, and friends. This hygge reading theme for January makes me look forward every year to a new year and January after the excitement of December is over. It also fits in with doing two Christmas Book Floods, aka Jolabokaflods, in January, one with my girlfriends and one with my family. (It’s just too hard to fit those into December.)

The past few years I’ve also loved going to my local public library for a mock Caldecott night. It’s such a fun night to focus on picture books and discover all the amazing new ones published in the past year.

I just love picture books! I love reading them aloud to my grandchildren and to my last child in the nest for our homeschooling Morning Basket. You are never too old for picture books! Sarah Mackenzie of readaloudrevival.com says the same thing.

At the event, the other attendees and I got to look at 44 picture books published in 2025 which the organizer of the event considers as contenders for the award. Some of those books are shown in this post.

The one above is one of my favorites from the night. I just adore picture book biographies. This one is about Clara Driscoll, who made Tiffany lamps. (See a whole list of them here.)

The book above is my pick for 2026! It’s Cat Nap by Brian Lies.

The reason I picked it is because the illustrations are the most distinguished illustrations of what I saw of the books that night. In this book, the illustrator/author totally pushes the boundaries of illustrations of a picture book. The story involves a cat-and-mouse chase through an art museum. The illustrations of the animals changes according to what piece of art is in the background. So when they are chasing across a bas-relief piece of art from ancient Egyptian times, the cat looks 3-Dish. Then when the chase is across a stained-glass window, the cat blends in with the stained glass figures. I just love this! If you want to read an amazon review of this book and see how many rave reviews it has, go here.

Here’s another picture book biography! A pioneering female photographer, Imogen Cunningham.

Then here’s another picture book biography, about a man who was Peru’s potato expert.

Go here to see what the Caldecott Award committee members are looking for when they award the book.

You can go here to see past winners.

After the participants of the event got to see the books, we voted for our top three. Whatever book didn’t get more than one vote from the around 20 people there that night, got kicked out.

Then we talked about why we voted for the ones that were still in the running, and we voted again, narrowing down the selection. After 4-5 rounds of this, these books below were the top three.

Nunu and the Sea was first, then Cat Nap, then Moon Song. I voted for all three at some point during the rounds.

I was thrilled that my original first pick was still in the top three. This happened last year as well.

Guess what? You can watch the Caldecott Award ceremony this coming Monday January 26 at 11 AM ET. It’s part of the Youth Media Awards of the American Library Association. It will be live-streamed over here. I’m excited to watch this and see which book wins!!!

What book do you think will win? Or should have won? if you are reading this after the award is given. Please comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Now you have a bunch of titles to go put on hold at your local public library. Happy picture book reading! As Sarah Mackenize says, reading a beautiful picture book is like going to an art museum in your lap. Enjoy!