Physical Characteristics of Characters in Caldecott Medal Winning Books

Before exploring the primary character's engagement in play, each Caldecott Medal

winning book from 2000-2017 was initially examined to gain insight into the physical

characteristics of primary, secondary and background characters in the books. Primary

characters were considered as characters that the story is about, or whose voice the story

told is being told from. Secondary characters were defined as characters that directly

engaged with the primary character. This engagement may be evident in illustrations or

text. Background characters were characters that did not engage with the primary

character but were visible in illustrations or mentioned in text. The characters' gender

was recorded, in addition to noting if the character was human or inanimate. Details of

the physical characteristics of characters featured in Caldecott Medal winning books

from 2000-2017 are provided in Figures 1-3 below.

Human Characters in Caldecott Medal

Winning Books (2000-2017)
14
12 12
12 11 11

10
Number of Books

8
8

4
2
2

0
Male Female Male Female Male Female
Human Primary Characters Human Secondary Characters Human Background
Characters
Type of Character

Figure 1. Human characters in Caldecott Medal winning books (2000-2017)

 Inanimate Characters in Caldecott Medal
Winning Books (2000-2017)
14 13
12
12
Number of Books

10
8
8

0
Inanimate Primary Characters Inanimate Secondary Inanimate Background
Characters Characters
Type of Character

Figure 2. Inanimate characters in Caldecott Medal winning books (2000-2017)

Primary Characters in Caldecott

Medal Winning Books
(2000-2017)
9
8 8
8

6
Number of Books

3
2
2

0
Human Primary Human Primary Inanimate Primary
Characters (Male) Characters (Female) Characters
Type of Primary Character

Figure 3. Primary characters in Caldecott Medal winning books (2000-2017)