Chris Raschka, who won the Caldecott Medal, awarded for best picture book, also stayed close to home with his picture book, “A Ball for Daisy.” The wordless book for ages 3 and up deals with a dog’s loss of her favorite ball. It was inspired by an everyday incident in an elevator a decade ago involving Raschka’s four-year-old son, his favorite ball, and a dog named Daisy. The dog eventually destroyed the ball, but it also sparked the idea behind the award-winning book.

“My son eventually got over it,” Raschka told USA Today, “but I thought it’d make a good picture book.” The challenging part he said, was “achieving the right balance between empathetic response without making it too upsetting for kids.”