3x3 Children's Book Show Judging

The First Round

The Fifth Annual 3x3 Children's Book Show judging took place on Wednesday, June 10 at the Art Directors Club. Our judges included David Caplan, senior art director, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Laurent Linn, art director for Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; Eleni Beja, editor, Holiday House Books and illustrators Raul Colón, Sean Qualls and Serge Bloch.

L to R: Serge Bloch, Eleni Beja, Laurent Linn, Raul Colón, Sean Qualls and David Caplan

This was the first year we've actually judged the actual books, previously all judging was done digitally and for a very good reason, by judging the work digitally we were able to get a panel of international jurors to judge the work. We find that there are distinct differences between books from the the States and from outside North America. This year we decided to try doing the judging here in the New York--we did have one international judge, Serge Bloch who has been living here the past three years and is returning to Paris at the end of June. There are two parts to the judging, the actual books and everything else that has been entered digitally. We discounted the entry fee if entrants entered the actual book but it seems over half chose to enter digitally. The digital judging will be over in about two weeks and we'll announce the winners at the end of the month.

Eleni and Raul check out a book

Judges were asked to select their favorite books during the first round, we then placed upside down paper cups and gave each judge different colored chips to vote for the pieces they felt should be in the show. Once the digital judging is complete we will be able to announce medal and merit winners in this year's show.

Photos by Sarah Munt.