Center for Children’s Literature

Children’s Book Committee

CBC LogoThe Children’s Book Committee (CBC) was founded more than 100 years ago to help parents, teachers, and librarians choose the books that children will find captivating and transforming. Every year it produces comprehensive annotated book lists for children aged infant through 18.

Our Mission

The CBC reviews over 6000 titles each year for accuracy and literary quality and considers their emotional impact on children. It chooses the best 600 books, both fiction and nonfiction, which it lists with annotations according to age and category.

The Children’s Book Committee strives to guide librarians, educators, parents, grandparents, and other interested adults to the best books for children published each year. The list includes more than 600 titles chosen by reviewers for literary quality and excellence of presentation as well as the potential emotional impact of the books on young readers. Other criteria include credibility of characterization and plot, authenticity of time and place, age suitability, positive treatment of ethnic and religious differences, and the absence of stereotypes.

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Children's Book Committee March Pick

The Lost Year
Author: Katherine Marsh

Separated from his journalist father during COVID, Matthew, 13, discovers a deeply-held family secret about his great-grandmother’s life in Ukraine during the 1930s Holodomor famine. Back matter.

Our Young Reviewer Says:

The Lost Year is a historical fiction coming-of-age story told through three entwining timelines. It is at the top of my “best books of 2023” list.

The story occurs in the early 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and the 1930s Holodomor in Soviet-occupied Ukraine. Inspired by the author’s family history, the story connects a shared experience of stress, isolation, and survival through the perspectives of a 13-year-old American boy, Matthew, and his Ukrainian Grandmother. Read more...

–Quade 14, Encinitas, CA.

Past Monthly Picks