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 January Pick
A koala’s tendency to apparently fall out of trees starts being wrongly attributed to bad intentions. What will stop the rumor mill? Humorous gouache, digital collage, and duct tape illustrations.
Our Young Reviewer Says:
I like “Gray hair! Grim stare!” “Grim stare” is a funny word. I like the pictures. I like how this little bird has not seen proof. “Dropbear is mean. Dropbear is rude. Dropbear smells like stinky old food”. That’s the part that’s really funny. Why does he linger up high? They say he’s rude but all he wants is a hug.
–Wren, age 4, New York, NY