Illustrator Cátia Chien’s son recently turned eight and wanted to go bowling for his birthday. But when his mom’s phone rang on Sunday as they were still in the bowling alley parking lot, his plans were upended. His mother’s professional life was forever changed as well.

The call was from the Caldecott committee, and as Chien’s husband cried and “everything slowed down” around her, she asked committee chair Jewel Davis to repeat what she had said—Fireworks, written by Matthew Burgess and illustrated by Chien, had won the 2026 Caldecott Medal.

“To be able to create for children has been such a dream come true for me, actually a privilege,” said Chien. “It comes from such a personal place of having the desire to give gifts to the world, in some way, through storytelling [and] my art. That place has always fulfilled me very deeply. However, I think that I've always wanted to have more reach. What the Caldecott means to me is that the reach goes beyond my art studio now. The book can be something that can reach more children. It can have a bigger voice and make an impact. It’s a really amazing thing.”

The family did not go bowling. Instead, they hugged and cried some more and went for celebratory hot pot and Korean barbecue.

[READ: SLJ Reviews the Caldecott Medal Winner ‘Fireworks’ and Honors | ALA Youth Media Awards 2026]

Unlike last year, when the Caldecott committee shocked the kid lit world with its selection of Chooch Helped, Fireworks had been on just about every Mock Caldecott list. Instead of blocking that out, as some creators do, Chien leaned into it.

“I wanted to embrace it,” she said. “If it doesn't happen, I would have at least had this moment of receiving the love and the support.”

Chien and Burgess, who also collaborated on the 2020 picture book, The Bear and the Moon, discussed the Caldecott contender conversations and whether that call might come. When it did, Chien called Burgess, and they “screamed” in excitement at their success.

Davis called Fireworks “a rare book that trusts the quiet, lived-in moments of childhood to be just as spectacular as the main event.”

“Long before the first spark hits the night sky, the book is already alive with the heat of the city, the movement of children on the go, and the layered sensory details of a day spent waiting,” Davis said. “The illustrations do not just show us the world, they pull us into the city sounds and rhythm of being young and together. By the time the sky finally erupts, it feels less like a surprise and more like a shared exhale, a gorgeous culmination of a day that was already full of wonder.”

Chien and Burgess worked together in a similar fashion to how they had previously with Bear in the Moon.

“He gave me a lot of space to take freedoms in my creation of the visual story,” Chien said. “I am the kind of Illustrator that really wants to have the time to explore other facets of the story and not just what's written. So, in that way, I didn't look to him to have a sense of whether something was working. I looked within myself and the story as it was already written. The editor and the art director provided some feedback. Sometimes they would show things to Matthew, and he would have some comment that I would take into account. But often I was just working on with [the] script and what I was bringing to it.”

[READ: ‘All the Blues in the Sky’ by Renée Watson Wins Newbery; ‘Fireworks’ Illustrated by Cátia Chien Earns Caldecott at 2026 Youth Media Awards]

When first presented with Burgess’s manuscript, Chien thought it was a love letter to New York City and how people often use it as a place to transition from one thing to another, find a new home, and belonging. That was her lived experience, as she moved to New York City in 2013 and eventually met her husband and had her son there.

“When I started to work on it further, I realized, ‘Oh, no, that's not what this is about,’” Chien said. “That's the process that I love the most in making a picture book. I might have an idea, but I really don't. As a creative, it's an interesting thing to encounter.”

Artists bring their technical skills and ideas but “in the end, the book tells you what it wants to be,” she said.

And Chien realized that Fireworks wanted to be a story about childhood.

“I made it more specifically about the journey of capturing the freedom within childhood that is so distinct and alive in children, and the way that they experience a day,” she said. “Adults are so marked by time.”

Children, however, live more freely, meeting life as it happens. That’s what she wanted her work to convey.

“I really wanted the goal to be to just capture that sense of freedom and then the ultimate display of the fireworks at the end,” she said. “It was a journey for me illustrating this and really finding my way through.”