Booklist Editors' Choice: Books for Youth

About the Booklist Editors' Choice: Books for Youth
Committed to providing a broad selection of outstanding books that mixes popular appeal with literary excellence, the Books for Youth editorial staff has chosen the titles below as best-of-the-year fiction, nonfiction, and picture books.

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Fiction

2012 Selection(s)

Young Readers

Machines Go to Work in the City

By William Low. Illus. by the author. Holt, $16.99 (9780805090505). PreS–Gr. 2.

Thoughtful design, dynamic art, and solid information make this a standout for all those kids (all right, mostly boys) who love cars and trucks and anything that goes vroom!


Penny and Her Song

By Kevin Henkes. Illus. by the author. Greenwillow, $12.99 (9780062081957). PreS–Gr. 2.

Little mouse-girl Penny has a song in her heart. Well, it’s not just in her heart, because she likes to belt it out. Henkes understands the way families make memories in his first easy reader, an adorable opener to the Penny series.


Sleep like a Tiger

By Mary Logue. Illus. by Pamela Zagarenski. Houghton, $16.99 (9780547641027). PreS–Gr. 1.

A young girl can’t sleep until she wonders about various animals and what they do for a night’s rest. A lyrical text and magical art touch a familiar childhood complaint with enchantment in this luminous offering.


This Is Not My Hat

By Jon Klassen. Illus. by the author. Candlewick, $15.99 (9780763655990). K–Gr. 2.

This subversive follow-up to I Want My Hat Back (2011) features a minnow who absconds with the hat belonging to a much larger fish. In addition to the knockout page turns and fantastic fish-eye expressions, this includes an LOL scene involving a snitching crab.


Z Is for Moose

By Kelly Bingham. Illus. by Paul O. Zelinsky. Greenwillow, $16.99 (9780060799847). K–Gr. 2.

It’s just your basic abecedarian animal parade—except that Moose is a tad overeager, crowding the early alphabet with annoying anticipation. When M goes to Mouse, Moose is devastated, then petulant. Is there a way to appease him by Z? (Spoiler: yes.)


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