Publisher Weekly Best Books of the Year 2008: Children's Picture book

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“May you live in interesting times” is a quote commonly attributed to Confucius, probably erroneously, but Robert F. Kennedy did use it in a speech in 1966, adding a rueful twist: “Like it or not, we live in interesting times....” Regardless of your thinking on these current times, they are certainly anything but boring, and we feel the same about the books published this year.

Once again, we take the opportunity near year's end to review the year in books, highlighting the very best of what American publishing had to offer in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, comics, religion, lifestyle and children's. There were the authors we expected to deliver, and they did: Louise Erdrich with The Plague of Doves, Richard Price with Lush Life, Jhumpa Lahiri with Unaccustomed Earth, Lydia Millet with How the Dead Dream. A breakthrough surprise about cricket, Netherland by Joseph O'Neill, delighted us, while Tim Winton's Breath took ours away. We listened to our elders in How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People; thought about our planet with The Soul of the Rhino; examined our history in The Hemingses of Monticello and Abraham Lincoln: A Life; and, thanks to Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, we even considered Jesus for President.

1. In A Blue Room By Jim Averbeck
   
   
   (baby books (Ages 0-3), children books, children books (Ages 4-8))
   
   "Tusa appears to have breathed in first-time author Averbeck's text and breathed it out as pictures in a bedtime book that surprises the senses."
   
   


2. The Girl In The Castle Inside The Museum By Kate Bernheimer
   
   
   (children books (Ages 4-8), children books, sci-fi)
   
   "A bang-up twist inverts a spellbinding story that invites readers to ponder a girl inside a castle inside a glass globe inside a museum full of toys."
   
   


3. The Day Leo Said I Hate You! By Robie Harris
   
   
   (children books (Ages 4-8), children books, teens)
   
   "When mother/son relations go nuclear, Harris's solution is so humane and, yes, replicable that booksellers might consider shelving copies of this vibrant book in the parenting section."
   
   


4. Ten Little Fingers And Ten Little Toes By Mem Fox
   
   
   (baby books (Ages 0-3), children books, children books (Ages 4-8))
   
   "In a paean to babies around the world, Fox's rhymes feel as if they always existed in our collective consciousness and were simply waiting to be written down."
   
   


5. A Couple Of Boys Have The Best Week Ever By Marla Frazee
   
   
   (children books (Ages 4-8), children books, teens)
   
   "Text contradicts art nearly every step of the way in this very funny book. Eamon spends a week at his grandparents' house, along with his friend James; the grandparents provide educational activities, and the boys are shown goofing off—very affectionately, of course."
   
   


6. What To Do About Alice? By Barbara Kerley
   
   
   (children books (Ages 4-8), children books)
   
   "It's hard to imagine a picture book biography that could better suit its subject than this high-energy volume serves young Alice Roosevelt."
   
   


7. Wave By Suzy Lee
   
   
   (children books (Ages 4-8), children books)
   
   "The heroine of this wordless picture book, a mostly solitary girl, engages in silent play with the ocean; the two-color art explicitly recalls postwar classics."
   
   


8. Adèle & Simon In America By Barbara Mcclintock
   
   
   (children books (Ages 4-8), children books, adventure)
   
   "Fresh from Paris, the siblings take a train journey across the early-20th-century U.S.; each of 12 destinations affords a hide-and-seek game with Simon's lost belongings and with historical figures who are identified in endnotes. "
   
   


9. Silly Lilly And The Four Seasons By Agnès Rosenstiehl
   
   
   (children books (Ages 4-8), children books, sci-fi)
   
   "An early reader in comics format, this marvel of distilled storytelling draws children directly into the heroine's emotional world; to know Lilly is to want to know what she has to say."
   
   


10. There Are Cats In This Book By Viviane Schwarz
    
    
    (baby books (Ages 0-3), children books, children books (Ages 4-8))
    
    "Utterly playful and innovative in its design, this cheeky lift-the-flap book invites readers to romp with a trio of cats. "
    
    


11. Smash! Crash! By Jon Scieszka
    
    
    (children books (Ages 4-8), children books, adventure)
    
    "Two best friends who happen to be trucks thrive on gear-grinding noise and rowdy antics in a Pixar-like junkyard setting—how could any vehicle-loving preschooler resist? "
    
    


12. One Boy By Laura Vaccaro Seeger
    
    
    (children books (Ages 4-8), children books)
    
    "Seeger deploys die-cuts to craft another nifty peek-a-boo book, this time enhancing counting to 10 with a clever word game."
    
    


13. How I Learned Geography By Uri Shulevitz
    
    
    (children books (Ages 4-8), children books)
    
    "In a work more personal than the Caldecott Medalist has ever before offered, Shulevitz summons boyhood memories of WWII and shows how he learned to defeat despair."
    
    


14. Jack And The Box By Art Spiegelman
    
    
    (children books (Ages 4-8), children books, children books (Ages 9-12), children books series)
    
    "Writing and drawing for emerging readers, the Pulitzer Prize winner times his jokes with a Cat in the Hat meets Marx Brothers perfection. "
    
    


15. The House In The Night By Susan Marie Swanson
    
    
    (baby books (Ages 0-3), children books, children books (Ages 4-8))
    
    "A single color, marigold, enhances Krommes's b&w scratchboard illustrations, delicate and elegant as snowflakes, in a bedtime book that connects the beauty of home with the wonders of the world."
    
    


Source:
http://www.publishersweekly.com

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