We love books! We have a lot of school libraries as members! So, the SLJ best books list just fits perfectly with our mission.
It’s always hard to know how to spend your limited collection development dollars. Checking out annual “best of” lists can help you to find the books that other people have already reviewed and found to be good. You hit the dual goals of making your life a little easier AND ensuring you are bringing in good books to your library. Excellent!
You can find the whole set of lists here. And review with us a few of the highlights of each list below.
“From the book room assistants who download publisher submissions to the reviewers who read and assess each title to the designers who make the lists look as beautiful online as they do on the page, so many people have a hand in making our Best Books list possible. Most important are the 22 educator committee members who read every book starred by SLJ, and then some, and meet multiple times in the space of two months to deliberate thoughtfully and present a list that can be both useful and inspirational, timely and timeless.
“Each discussion is led by one of our five indispensable reviews editors, who guide, shepherd, instigate, and encourage our reviewers to fashion the best Best list they can to meet the needs of our readers and the readers they serve. But it doesn’t stop there. We have copyeditors and proofers and image gatherers, making sure every ISBN is correct and every period is where it should be. Plus, our talented creative director assigns our iconic, star-filled Best Books cover to one of the illustrators highlighted and somehow, miraculously, comes up with a cover each year that is somehow more stunning than we could have imagined.
“We hope that you find a lot to cherish in these 155 titles. Above all, we hope that every one of your readers will find among these pages that thing that rings true, sparks something inside, and shines a light in the darkness the way only a book can.”
Check out the links below to a few different topics, and a couple of the books they recommend:
Best Picture Books
Behar, Ruth. Tía Fortuna’s New Home: A Jewish Cuban Journey. illus. by Devon Holzwarth. Knopf. ISBN 9780593172414. K-Gr 3–This powerful intergenerational story about heritage and hope is enhanced by stunning art; a must for all libraries, and remarkable in every way.
Blackall, Sophie. Farmhouse. Little, Brown. ISBN 9780316528948. PreS-Gr 2–Blackall worked in mixed-media collage using items from a 19th-century farmhouse to recreate her vision of the true lives of its large family; it’s a one-of-a-kind, exquisite glimpse of land once held by Indigenous people, then by immigrants, and then toppled and very nearly returned to nature itself.
Best Chapter Books
Lyons, Kelly Starling. Miles Lewis: King of the Ice. illus. by Wayne Spencer. Penguin Workshop. ISBN 9780593383506.
Gr 2-5–Miles and his class are set to go ice skating on a field trip to learn about physics. But Miles is distracted by things happening at home. Chapter book readers will love the mixture of science and sports, as well as the highlighting of Black history.
Smallman, Steve. Maggie Sparks and the Monster Baby. illus. by Esther Hernando. Sweet Cherry. ISBN 9781782267768.
Gr 1-3–Maggie’s world is upturned when her parents bring new baby Alfie home. Maggie and her family can perform magic, and antics abound when she uses spells to compete with her brother for her family’s attention. A magical take on having a new baby sibling full of important lessons and beautiful illustrations.
Best Middle Grade Books
Dee, Barbara. Haven Jacobs Saves the Planet. S. & S./Aladdin. ISBN 9781534489837.
Gr 3-8–Twelve-year-old Haven Jacobs’s anxiety about climate change turns into an opportunity for action when a science project shows the local impact of pollution. Dee gets at the heart of anxiety, friendships, and taking an active role in one’s life in this resonant contemporary novel.
Ellis, Deborah. Step. Groundwood. ISBN 9781773068152.
Gr 3-7–Ten unconnected protagonists have an 11th birthday. Each child faces an opportunity to see through the eyes of another and to take a step toward making the world a better place. These realistic short stories will take readers deeper into their own hearts and dreams.
You can find the whole set of lists here.