Put a Seal on It! Budget Committee Seal Research

My experience with the ALSC seals goes back 30 years to my time as a primary grade teacher in Macon, Georgia. I had a professor at the University of Florida, Dr. Linda Leonard Lamme, who turned me on to books—picturebooks especially—and so I incorporated children’s literature into my kindergarten, first, and second grade classrooms. I remember sharing picturebooks such as King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub by Audrey and Don Wood, Mirandy and Brother Wind by Patricia C. McKissack and Jerry Pinkney, and Truck by Donald Crews with the Caldecott Award seals on them during readalouds and explaining that these books had won for outstanding artwork. At that time, I had no idea that ALSC sponsored the awards or how the Randolph Caldecott Award Selection Committees functioned. I never could have imagined that one day I would be serving as a member of the 2019 Randolph Caldecott Award Selection Committee.

I vividly remember after the 2019 YMA announcements in Seattle, Washington, walking into the exhibit halls to the booth of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, one of the award-winning publishers for that year. We greeted and congratulated Victoria Stapleton, Executive Director of School and Library Marketing, and she allowed several of us to place seals on some of their titles that had just been announced as Caldecott Award winners.

A few years later, I had the opportunity to chair the 2021 John Newbery Award Selection Committee and one of our committee members, Dr. Jo Phillips, mailed seals to everyone so we could put them on the books together via Zoom after making our decisions. This is an important committee ritual, and we were able to still do this even during the pandemic. I am now serving as immediate past president of ALSC, and one of my duties is serving on the Budget Committee. This committee does important behind-the-scenes work such as providing feedback to ALSC staff about our annual budget plan and helping to ensure that ALSC is fiscally sound and stable currently as well as in the future. (Special thanks to Stephanie Prato and Jacqueline Quinn for co-chairing this vital committee.) 

ALSC’s largest revenue generator is the seal sales. Seal sales directly support ALSC programming. Approximately 75-85% of our annual revenue—with variations from year to year—is generated by seal sales. Publishing companies purchase both the physical seals and the digital rights to use seals on covers and images to help market and sell their award-winning titles. There are others who purchase them as well including public libraries, and maybe even bookstores. I purchase them myself as I often teach a special topics course that is focused specifically on children’s and young adult literature awards. In this course, for example, students and I enjoy putting seals on books during class. Also, outside of this particular course, students sometimes purchase award-winning titles and bring them to class only to discover that their books, for whatever reason, do not have seals on them. They love getting seals from me to put on their books and they often debate and talk with me and their peers about the best place to put them on the cover. 

One example of important behind-the scenes work to help ALSC staff anticipate seal sales—whether they may increase or decrease for various reasons (e.g., anniversaries or movies based on children’s books)—is seal research. Yes, there is such a thing! Several members of the committee volunteer to do this, and it entails a number of important considerations. First, they anticipate if there are any award-winning titles that will have anniversaries in 2026. For instance, the 1977 Newbery Medal winner, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor—the second book by an African American to win this prestigious award—will have its 50^th anniversary in 2026. We share this information with ALSC staff so they can make budget projections. In addition to anniversaries, we also consider if there are movies that are coming out and if this too might impact seal sales. Serving on this committee and learning about this important behind-the-scenes information related to the seals has taken me full circle from a teacher who knew very little about seals (and ALSC) to someone who now knows that we pay money for a place to store the seals, and that yes, there is a such thing as seal research! I hope readers of this blog will consider joining the Budget Committee so that they too can learn about things such as seal research, and so much more!

Jonda C. McNair
Charlotte S. Huck Endowed Professor of Children’s Literature, The Ohio State University
2024–2025 ALSC Immediate Past President
she/her/hers

The post Put a Seal on It! Budget Committee Seal Research appeared first on ALSC Blog.

 My experience with the ALSC seals goes back 30 years to my time as a primary grade teacher in Macon, Georgia. I had a professor at the University of Florida, Dr. Linda Leonard Lamme, who turned me on to books—picturebooks especially—and so I incorporated children’s literature into my kindergarten, first, and second grade classrooms. I remember sharing picturebooks such as King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub by Audrey and Don Wood, Mirandy and Brother Wind by Patricia C. McKissack and Jerry Pinkney, and Truck by Donald Crews with the Caldecott Award seals on them during readalouds and explaining that these books had won for outstanding artwork. At that time, I had no idea that ALSC sponsored the awards or how the Randolph Caldecott Award Selection Committees functioned. I never could have imagined that one day I would be serving as a member of the 2019 Randolph Caldecott Award Selection Committee. I…
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