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The seven artists featured in A Caldecott Celebration are Robert McCloskey, Marcia Brown, Maurice Sendak, William Steig, Chris Van Allsburg, David Wiesner, and Mordicai Gerstein. Each artist represents one of the seven decades of the Caldecott Medal, an award given to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published in a given year.
The advance reading copy I was sent is not actually the full book. My copy is a slim sample, including the introduction, and portions of the sections about two artists: Robert McCloskey and Mordecai Gerstein.
McCloskey won the Caldecott medal in 1942, for Make Way for Ducklings, a book I had no idea was so old. The section about how he made this book is fascinating, and contains images of his sketchbook as well as clay models of frogs he made in preparation for illustrating the book. What I found most interesting is that McCloskey actually brought ducks home to his studio to observe. In his acceptance speech, he said, "I spent the next weeks on my hands and knees, armed with a box of Kleenex and a sketch book, following the ducks around the studio and observing them in the bathtub."
Mordecai Gerstein won the Caldecott Medal in 2004, for The Man Who Walked Between the Towers. This book is about a man named Philippe Petit, a high-wire artist who, in 1974, rigged a cable between the Twin Towers and walked across it, 1300 feet above the ground, with no safety net. Gerstein told this story about a positive moment in the history of the Twin Towers at a time when all books about them were about their destruction. He wanted to show that wonder is as much a part of life as terror. The section about this book also features illustrations of Gerstein's sketch book, as well as a photo of Petit during his amazing walk.
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A Caldecott Celebration: Seven Artists and Their Paths to the Caldecott Medal