Children’s Book Committee

Young Reviewers Program

CBC LogoThe Young Reviewers Program welcomes children from toddlers through high school students who read and review books that are currently being considered by the Children’s Book Committee (CBC). Started more than 20 years ago, the program supports the CBC’s longstanding mission to evaluate books for children, parents, librarians, and educators by focusing on how books can affect young readers.

Purpose of Becoming a Young Reviewer

Reviews help the CBC to create our Best Children’s Books of the Year lists and Children’s Book Awards. Some Young Reviewers have been in the program for years and many have highlighted their experience on school and scholarship resumés.

For more information about our program, please email youngreviewers@bankstreet.edu or click the button below to fill out our registration form.

Registration Form Submit a Review Children’s Book Committee

The Children’s Book Committee

Members of the CBC have a wide range of experience in the world of education, writing, and book publishing, but the voices of children through the Young Reviewers Program provide the committee with valuable insights into the literature we read throughout each year. Reviews are shared with committee members at weekly meetings and, at the end of the year, the CBC will consider many criteria when compiling the Best Children’s Books of the Year List, including the thoughts of our Young Reviewers. Excerpts from some reviews are shared on social media and at our awards ceremony in the spring.

Children's Book Committee September Pick

The Lion’s Run
Author: Sara Pennypacker
Illustrator: Jon Klassen

In 1944 occupied France, Lucas, 13, a kindhearted orphan, finds himself rescuing a litter of kittens, a baby and a racehorse. A spirited action-packed tale full of courage and hope.

Our Young Reviewer Says:

I liked that Lucas thought he was soft and not at all brave, and other people thought that too. They called him Petit Éclair. But then, Alice helped Lucas realize he was brave, because he worked for the Resistance, and he took a baby that was going to be taken away from his mother and cared for the baby, and he helped Alice get her horse to America.  All of those  make him braver little by little, until people don’t call him Petit Éclair anymore.It shows that you don’t have to be what people think you are  or want you to be. You can be whoever you want to be.

–Hannah, age 10, Baltimore, MD

Past Monthly Picks