Children’s Book Committee
The 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.
To contact us, please email bookcom@bankstreet.edu.
Children's Book Committee May Pick
Illustrator: Ashley Mackenzie
While rescuing a griffin, Christopher stumbles into a magical archipelago and meets a girl who can fly. Together they must save the world. Line drawings, glossary of magical beasts.
Our Young Reviewer Says:
Katherine Rundell has crafted a breathtaking story, one which interweaves a unique magical world with carefully rounded characters, and a beautifully paced storyline equally moving and light-hearted at the right moments. What sets this children’s fantasy apart from others is perhaps the concepts and creatures in the stories, the messages delivered, and the ending, which is sure to break your heart.
–Sophie, age 12, Hong Kong.