Best Of

A young girl who has been carefully nurturing a trio of chickens awakens one night to discover a fox has snatched one of her beloved hens. With tenderness and respect for their daughter’s heavy heart, Sonya’s parents soothe her tears, remember her fowl, and reinforce the coop’s siding, as they try to help her understand a fox’s need to provide for its young.

In this follow-up to One Crazy Summer (2010) and P.S. Be Eleven (2013), the intrepid Gaither sisters travel from their home in Brooklyn to visit their relatives in rural Alabama. Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern become embroiled in family drama and end up taking sides in the divisive dynamics. Yet when a natural disaster occurs, several generations of relatives pull together, and Delphine learns a bit about mercy and the true meaning of sisterhood.

Nelson infuses life into a long-gone 19th-century multiethnic New York City community that was destroyed by the creation of Central Park. Poetic forms as diverse as the village residents paint visceral and verbally rich portraits of individuals, friends, and neighbors, capturing the tenor of this forgotten place and time.

An imaginative child decked out in a yellow raincoat splashes through a stormy day with his wayward paper airplane in this stunning wordless picture book. Evoking the works of Ezra Jack Keats, Miyares adds depth and light to moments of adventure and drama in this deceptively simple tale.

When Peter and his dog have trouble settling into their new house at the edge of an ominous wood, the boy constructs two pillow-and-blanket guardians that provide companionship until he meets a flesh-and-blood friend. Kid-savvy text and handsome artwork reveal the spirit-bolstering power of imagination.

Told unequivocally that drums are only for boys, a daring girl dreams incessantly about tapping on tall congas, small bongós, and “silvery/moon-bright timbales” until she finds a way to share her music with the world. Lyrical free-verse narrative and fanciful color-infused artwork tell a tale inspired by Millo Castro Zaldarriaga, a young Chinese-African-Cuban musician who broke gender boundaries in early 20th-century Cuba.

Kent Turner, SLJ’s DVD editor, hand-picked these top-shelf productions that offer educational—as well as entertainment—value.

As a girl and her father travel toward an unnamed border with their coyote, they encounter repeated barriers and armed resistance. The spare text and arresting digital artwork present a child’s-eye view of the journey, as she counts the people who live by the train tracks, items on a makeshift barge at the frontera, and the clouds in the sky. A timely and powerful book.

During a hockey game, Trent accidentally hits a boy with an undiagnosed heart defect in the chest with the puck, killing him. Written off as a troublemaker, Trent is an understandably angry kid, but when he meets Fallon, a girl with a scarred face, he begins to open up. With genuine characters, relatable—often painfully so—family dynamics, and a tender portrayal of burgeoning friendship, this is a heartrending yet hopeful tale.