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July/August | Volume 42, Issue 7/8

The Case for Good Taste in Children’s Books

Meghan gurdon.

Children's Book Reviewer, Wall Street Journal

On June 4, 2011, the number one trending topic on Twitter was the Anthony Weiner scandal. I happen to remember that, because the number two topic on Twitter that day—almost as frenzied, though a lot less humorous—had to do with an outrageous, intolerable attack on Young Adult literature . . . by me. Entitled “Darkness Too Visible,” my article discussed the increasingly dark current that runs through books classified as YA, for Young Adult—books aimed at readers between 12 and 18 years of age—a subset that has, in the four decades since Young Adult became a distinct category in fiction, become increasingly lurid, grotesque, profane, sexual, and ugly.

Books show us the world, and in that sense, too many books for adolescents act like funhouse mirrors, reflecting hideously distorted portrayals of life. Those of us who have grown up understand that the teen years can be fraught and turbulent—and for some kids, very unhappy—but at the same time we know that in the arc of human life, these years are brief. Today, too many novels for teenagers are long on the turbulence and short on a sense of perspective. Nor does it help that the narrative style that dominates Young Adult books is the first person present tense— “I, I, I,” and “now, now, now.” Writers use this device to create a feeling of urgency, to show solidarity with the reader and to make the reader feel that he or she is occupying the persona of the narrator. The trouble is that the first person present tense also erects a kind of verbal prison, keeping young readers in the turmoil of the moment just as their hormones tend to do. This narrative style reinforces the blinkers teenagers often seem to be wearing, rather than drawing them out and into the open.

Bringing Judgment

The late critic Hilton Kramer was seated once at a dinner next to film director Woody Allen. Allen asked him if he felt embarrassed when he met people socially whom he’d savaged in print. “No,” Kramer said, “they’re the ones who made the bad art. I just described it.” As the story goes, Allen fell gloomily silent, having once made a film that had received the Kramer treatment.

I don’t presume to have a nose as sensitive as Hilton Kramer’s—but I do know that criticism is pointless if it’s only boosterism. To evaluate anything, including children’s books, is to engage the faculty of judgment, which requires that great bugbear of the politically correct, “discrimination.” Thus, in responding to my article, YA book writers Judy Blume and Libba Bray charged that I was giving comfort to book-banners, and Publisher’s Weekly  warned of a “danger” that my arguments “encourage a culture of fear around YA literature.” But I do not, in fact, wish to ban any books or frighten any authors. What I do wish is that people in the book business would exercise better taste; that adult authors would not simply validate every spasm of the teen experience; and that our culture was not marching toward ever-greater explicitness in depictions of sex and violence.

Books for children and teenagers are written, packaged, and sold by adults. It follows from this that the emotional depictions they contain come to young people with a kind of adult imprimatur. As a school librarian in Idaho wrote to her colleagues in my defense: “You are naïve if you think young people can read a dark and violent book that sits on the library shelves and not believe that that behavior must be condoned by the adults in their school lives.”

What kind of books are we talking about? Let me give you three examples—but with a warning that some of what you’re about to hear is not appropriate for younger listeners.

A teenaged boy is kidnapped, drugged, and nearly raped by a male captor. After escaping, he comes across a pair of weird glasses that transport him to a world of almost impossible cruelty. Moments later, he finds himself facing a wall of horrors, “covered with impaled heads and other dripping, black-rot body parts: hands, hearts, feet, ears, penises. Where the f— was this?”

That’s from Andrew Smith’s 2010 Young Adult novel,  The Marbury Lens .

A girl struggles with self-hatred and self-injury. She cuts herself with razors secretly, but her secret gets out when she’s the victim of a sadistic sexual prank. Kids at school jeer at her, calling her “cutterslut.” In response, “she had sliced her arms to ribbons, but the badness remained, staining her insides like cancer. She had gouged her belly until it was a mess of meat and blood, but she still couldn’t breathe.”

That’s from Jackie Morse Kessler’s 2011 Young Adult novel,  Rage .

I won’t read you the most offensive excerpts from my third example, which consist of explicit and obscene descriptions by a 17-year-old female narrator of sexual petting, of oral sex, and of rushing to a bathroom to defecate following a breakup. Yet  School Library Journal  praised Daria Snadowsky’s 2008 Young Adult novel,  Anatomy of a Boyfriend , for dealing “in modern terms with the real issues of discovering sex for the first time.” And Random House, its publisher, gushed about the narrator’s “heartbreakingly honest voice” as she recounts the “exquisite ups and dramatic downs of teenage love and heartbreak.”

The book industry, broadly speaking, says: Kids have a right to read whatever they want. And if you follow the argument through it becomes: Adults should not discriminate between good and bad books or stand as gatekeepers, deciding what young people should read. In other words, the faculty of judgment and taste that we apply in every other area of life involving children should somehow vaporize when it comes in contact with the printed word.

I appeared on National Public Radio to discuss these issues with the Young Adult book author Lauren Myracle, who has been hailed as a person “on the front lines in the fight for freedom of expression”—as if any controversy over whether a book is appropriate for children turns on the question of the author’s freedom to express herself. Myracle made clear that she doesn’t believe there should be any line between adult literature and literature for young people. In saying this, she was echoing the view that prevails in many progressive, secular circles—that young people should encounter material that jolts them out of their comfort zone; that the world is a tough place; and that there’s no point shielding children from reality. I took the less progressive, less secular view that parents should take a more interventionist approach, steering their children away from books about sex and horror and degradation, and towards books that make aesthetic and moral claims.

Now, although it may seem that our culture is split between Left and Right on the question of permissiveness regarding children’s reading material, in fact there is not so much division on the core issue as might appear. Secular progressives, despite their reaction to my article, have their own list of books they think young people shouldn’t read—for instance, books they claim are tinged with racism or jingoism or that depict traditional gender roles. Regarding the latter, you would not believe the extent to which children’s picture books today go out of the way to show father in an apron and mother tinkering with machinery. It’s pretty funny. But my larger point here is that the self-proclaimed anti-book-banners on the Left agree that books influence children and prefer some books to others.

Indeed, in the early years of the Cold War, many left-wing creative people in America gravitated toward children’s literature. Philip Nel, a professor at Kansas State University, has written that Red-hunters, “seeing children’s books as a field dominated by women . . . deemed it less important and so did not watch it closely.” Among the authors I am referring to are Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and Ruth Krauss, author of the 1952 classic  A Hole is to Dig , illustrated by a young Maurice Sendak. Krauss was quite open in her belief that children’s literature was an excellent means of putting left-wing ideas into young minds. Or so she hoped.

When I was a little girl I read  The Cat in the Hat , and I took from it an understanding of the sanctity of private property—it outraged me when the Cat and Thing One and Thing Two rampaged through the children’s house while their mother was away. Dr. Seuss was probably not intending to inculcate capitalist ideas—quite the contrary. But it happened in my case, and the point is instructive.

Taste and Beauty

A recent study conducted at Virginia Tech found that college women who read “chick lit”—light novels that deal with the angst of being a modern woman—reported feeling more insecure about themselves and their bodies after reading novels in which the heroines feel insecure about themselves and their bodies. Similarly, federal researchers were puzzled for years by a seeming paradox when it came to educating children about the dangers of drugs and tobacco. There seemed to be a correlation between anti-drug and anti-tobacco programs in elementary and middle schools and subsequent drug and tobacco use at those schools. It turned out that at the same time children were learning that drugs and tobacco were bad, they were taking in the meta-message that adults expected them to use drugs and tobacco.

This is why good taste matters so much when it comes to books for children and young adults. Books tell children what to expect, what life is, what culture is, how we are expected to behave—what the spectrum is. Books don’t just cater to tastes. They form tastes. They create norms—and as the examples above show, the norms young people take away are not necessarily the norms adults intend. This is why I am skeptical of the social utility of so-called “problem novels”—books that have a troubled main character, such as a girl with a father who started raping her when she was a toddler and anonymously provides her with knives when she is a teenager hoping that she will cut herself to death. (This scenario is from Cheryl Rainfield’s 2010 Young Adult novel,  Scars , which  School Library Journal  hailed as “one heck of a good book.”) The argument in favor of such books is that they validate the real and terrible experiences of teenagers who have been abused, addicted, or raped—among other things. The problem is that the very act of detailing these pathologies, not just in one book but in many, normalizes them. And teenagers are all about identifying norms and adhering to them.

In journalist Emily Bazelon’s recent book about bullying, she describes how schools are using a method called “social norming” to discourage drinking and driving. “The idea,” she writes, “is that students often overestimate how much other kids drink and drive, and when they find out that it’s less prevalent than they think—outlier behavior rather than the norm—they’re less likely to do it themselves.” The same goes for bullying: “When kids understand that cruelty isn’t the norm,” Bazelon says, “they’re less likely to be cruel themselves.”

Now isn’t that interesting?

Ok, you say, but books for kids have always been dark. What about  Hansel and Gretel ? What about the scene in  Beowulf  where the monster sneaks into the Danish camp and starts eating people?

Beowulf  is admittedly gruesome in parts—and fairy tales are often scary. Yet we approach them at a kind of arm’s length, almost as allegory. In the case of  Beowulf , furthermore, children reading it—or having it read to them—are absorbing the rhythms of one of mankind’s great heroic epics, one that explicitly reminds us that our talents come from God and that we act under God’s eye and guidance. Even with the gore,  Beowulf  won’t make a child callous. It will help to civilize him.

English philosopher Roger Scruton has written at length about what he calls the modern “flight from beauty,” which he sees in every aspect of our contemporary culture. “It is not merely,” he writes, “that artists, directors, musicians and others connected with the arts”—here we might include authors of Young Adult literature—“are in a flight from beauty . . . . There is a desire to spoil beauty . . . . For beauty makes a claim on us; it is a call to renounce our narcisissm and look with reverence on the world.”

We can go to the Palazzo Borghese in Rome and stand before Caravaggio’s painting of David with the head of Goliath, and though we are looking at horror we are not seeing ugliness. The light that plays across David’s face and chest, and that slants across Goliath’s half-open eyes and mouth, transforms the scene into something beautiful. The problem with the darker offerings in Young Adult literature is that they lack this transforming and uplifting quality. They take difficult subjects and wallow in them in a gluttonous way; they show an orgiastic lack of restraint that is the mark of bad taste.

Young Adult book author Sherman Alexie wrote a rebuttal to my article entitled, “Why the Best Kids Books are Written in Blood.” In it, he asks how I could honestly believe that a sexually explicit Young Adult novel might traumatize a teenaged mother. “Does she believe that a YA novel about murder and rape will somehow shock a teenager whose life has been damaged by murder and rape? Does she believe a dystopian novel will frighten a kid who already lives in hell?”

Well of course I don’t. But I also don’t believe that the vast majority of 12-to-18-year-olds are living in hell. And as for those who are, does it really serve them to give them more torment and sulphur in the stories they read?

The body of children’s literature is a little like the Library of Babel in the Jorge Luis Borges story—shelf after shelf of books, many almost gibberish, but a rare few filled with wisdom and beauty and answers to important questions. These are the books that have lasted because generation after generation has seen in them something transcendent, and has passed them on. Maria Tatar, who teaches children’s literature at Harvard, describes books like  The Chronicles of Narnia, The Wind in the Willows, The Jungle Books , and  Pinocchio  as “setting minds into motion, renewing senses, and almost rewiring brains.”

Or as William Wordsworth wrote: “What we have loved/others will love, and we will teach them how.”

The good news is that just like the lousy books of the past, the lousy books of the present will blow away like chaff. The bad news is that they will leave their mark. As in so many aspects of culture, the damage they do can’t easily be measured. It is more a thing to be felt—a coarseness, an emptiness, a sorrow.

“Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as if it does not matter.” That’s Roger Scruton again. But he doesn’t want us to despair. He also writes:

It is one mark of rational beings that they do not live only—or even at all—in the present. They have the freedom to despise the world that surrounds them and live another way. The art, literature, and music of our civilization remind them of this, and also point to the path that lies always before them: the path out of desecration towards the sacred and the sacrificial.

Let me close with Saint Paul the Apostle in Philippians 4:8:

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

And let us think about these words when we go shopping for books for our children.

Meghan Cox Gurdon has been the children’s book reviewer for the  Wall Street Journal  since 2005. Her work has also appeared in numerous other publications, including the  Washington Post , the  Washington Examiner , the  San Francisco Chronicle ,  National Review , and the  Weekly Standard . In the 1990s, she worked as an overseas correspondent in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and London, and traveled and reported from Cambodia, Somalia, China, Israel, South Korea, and Northern Ireland. She graduated magna cum laude from Bowdoin College in 1986 and lives near Washington, D.C., with her husband and their five children.

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The Best Books of 2022

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ARTS & CULTURE

The ten best children’s books of 2022.

This year’s top titles include a fairy-tale remake, a clever counting book and a survey of architectural wonders the world over

Megan Gambino

Senior Editor

My two young girls, ages 5 and 8, are sponges when it comes to mind-blowing facts. They just love to be enveloped in new worlds, and I love nothing more than to see the looks on their faces when they are absorbing new information. In my 15 years at Smithsonian , I’ve learned my own share of incredible tidbits that piqued the curiosity of my kids, or really anyone with their sense of wonder about the world. Like that less time separates us from Tyrannosaurus rex than separated T. rex from Stegosaurus . (Thanks to our dinosaur correspondent Riley Black for that one.) Or, for the history-minded reader, that Cleopatra’s reign is closer to today than it is to when the Great Pyramids were built.

When I tell them these facts, and so many more, I can see their wheels spinning. My youngest is on the cusp of learning to read—a super exciting milestone, but I have some fear creeping in that soon they will no longer want me to read books aloud. I never want that day to come.

The children’s books I’ve selected as this year’s best are full of fun facts about everything from architecture to animal behavior. Most important, though, their authors and illustrators seem to get how kids’ minds work: They are always hungry to learn more, especially when they are being entertained.

Farmhouse by Sophie Blackall

In 2018, author-illustrator Sophie Blackall and her husband, playwright Ed Schmidt, bought a 21-acre abandoned dairy farm in New York’s Catskills and turned the property into Milkwood , a pastoral retreat for children’s book writers and illustrators. Doing so required leveling a dilapidated 19th-century farmhouse on the site, so to first honor the building, Blackall researched the home’s history. A family of 14, with descendants still in the area, had lived there during the Great Depression. So many artifacts of their lives—wallpaper, curtains, schoolbooks, handmade dresses—still rested in the farmhouse. Blackall salvaged them, using bits and pieces to illustrate in collage form her new book, Farmhouse . It was her hope to “make the experience of reading this book feel as close as possible to the experience of being in the farmhouse,” the author shares in an interview . Page by page, readers peer into the house, seeing and hearing about the growing-up and mischief that happened inside its walls, as if they are looking into a dollhouse.

The book’s backstory and craftsmanship shine more so than the text, which reads in one long sentence. Apparently, Blackall composed it on a long drive, memorizing each phrase until she arrived at her destination hours away and recorded it on her phone. “I like the idea that I can say to a kid, do you want to hear a story? It’s only one sentence long,” she says in the interview. But for me, the rolling sentence mimics the way that life moves gently on. (Recommended ages: 3+)

Step inside the dollhouse-like interior of Farmhouse and relish in the daily life of the family that lives there, rendered in impeccable, thrilling detail.

Bedtime for Bo by Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold

Goodnight books are a category in and of their own, and Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold’s Bedtime for Bo tops my favorites for this year. Sarah Shun-lien Bynum puts it best in her review in the New York Times : “This book offers a master class in how to shepherd a rambunctious child to bed with patience, creativity and good humor.”

Originally published in Norway and translated into English by Kari Dickson, the story follows Bo’s mom, patient as a saint, as she joins in her son’s imaginary play. ( Maybe some of that patience will rub off in the reading? ) She uses Bo’s stall tactics—pretending to be a parrot, a bear, a walrus and a giraffe—to teach him about animal behavior, while keeping him moving through the bedtime march of bathing, brushing his teeth and getting tucked into bed. Mari Kanstad Johnsen’s illustrations, which earned the New York Times /New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Book Award, have a chaotic feel to them that matches the messiness of the scene and of life with young kids in general. Thanks for keeping it real, Johnsen, with the loose laundry, cluttered surfaces and spider webs.

Meghan Cox Gurdon at the Wall Street Journal thinks Bedtime for Bo is “as much fun to imitate as it is to read.” Bynum is hopeful it will help the nighttime routine, too. “Imagine it,” she writes, “Bedtime as not a battle but a madcap collaboration!” (Recommended ages: 3 to 6)

Bedtime for Bo

Stretch like a giraffe and snuggle like a meerkat with Bo and Mommy as they get ready for bed!

Chester van Chime Who Forgot How to Rhyme by Avery Monsen

Poor Chester van Chime is a welcome playmate to my kindergartener who is learning to rhyme. Author Avery Monsen introduces the protagonist and his problem in the book’s first couplet: “There once was a youngster named Chester van Chime, who woke up one day and forgot how to rhyme.” By the second couplet, though, everything goes awry. “It baffled poor Chester. He felt almost queasy. To match up two sounds, it was always so…” Monsen writes, “…simple for him.” Failed rhyme after failed rhyme will have kids finishing the painfully obvious sentences in what BookPage declares “a guaranteed good time.” Publisher’s Weekly notes that “what starts out as a book about wordplay turns into an inventive and giggly antidote for the bad-day blues.”

Be sure to spend some extra time with each page, because the illustrations by Abby Hanlon are filled with slugs on rugs, a fox in socks and other rhyming pairs. (Recommended ages: 4 to 6)

Chester van Chime Who Forgot How to Rhyme

From the coauthor of the smash hit All My Friends Are Dead and the creator of the beloved Dory Fantasmagory chapter book series comes a hilarious read aloud about a boy who loses his gift for rhyme.

Luminous: Living Things That Light Up the Night by Julia Kuo

In 2009, I had the privilege of tagging along with Smithsonian biologist Nancy Knowlton as she studied coral reefs off the coast of Bocas del Toro, Panama. There, I witnessed bioluminescence—the first I had seen outside of fireflies—in the form of dinoflagellates, one-celled organisms that light up when agitated in the water. I’d love for my two girls to have such a jaw-dropping experience, but until then, I’ll be reading them Julia Kuo’s Luminous .

The author-illustrator invites readers on an adventure through forests, caves and the deep sea to discover all sorts of creatures—fungi, glowworms, dragonfish, squid and more—that make their own light thanks to chemical reactions in their bodies. The blues and oranges pop on the book’s black pages in a spectacular approximation of what bioluminescence actually looks like. Two layers of text give the reader options, but I wouldn’t opt for just the poetic through line. The additional paragraphs expounding on the plants and animals are too interesting to miss. Did you know that crown jellyfish produce a “burglar alarm” of light when attacked, or that eating a piddock clam can make your hands and mouth glow? (Recommended ages: 4 to 8)

Luminous: Living Things That Light Up the Night

From acclaimed author-illustrator Julia Kuo comes a remarkable picture book about bioluminescence, the light made from living things, and its many forms.

Uncle John’s City Garden by Bernette G. Ford

Late author and publishing executive Bernette G. Ford spent her career championing stories with characters of color written and illustrated by people of color. She is best known for Bright Eyes, Brown Skin , which she co-wrote with Cheryl Willis Hudson and which her husband, George Ford, illustrated in 1990. “Bernette’s firm yet gentle editorial touch with the text was brilliant in expressing the pulse of what’s now called Black joy in kidlit,” Hudson told the New York Times in July 2021 after Ford died from lung cancer.

Lucky for us, this year, Holiday House published Ford’s last book, Uncle John’s City Garden , posthumously. In her author’s note, Ford describes the treasure of a book as “an ‘almost’ true story.” That’s because her own Uncle John, like the book’s character, tended an empty lot in Brooklyn’s Canarsie neighborhood in the 1950s. Her book’s narrator may spend the summer with her uncle in the garden, but Ford never did, she writes: “I wished I could have, and now, in this story, I have.”

The perspective that Li’l Sissy, the narrator, offers is relatable to kids. She’s constantly sizing things up—her family members, shovels, the growing plants, and tables at a family barbeque—against herself and other tangible objects. “One of the tomatoes was so big I needed two hands to hold it,” writes Ford, while Coretta Scott King Award-winning illustrator Frank Morrison illustrates the page with the little girl, eyes bigger than her stomach, staring at the outsized fruit. Ford also has a knack for making something that may seem so big and impossible to a child, like building a community garden, possible, by breaking it down into clear, simple steps. She includes a recipe for succotash at the back of the book that may inspire readers to take up gardening themselves, though she uses frozen and canned vegetables to keep things simple.

Kirkus Reviews calls Uncle John’s City Garden “a simple, lovely story about the power of blooming where you are planted.” (Recommended ages: 4 to 8)

Uncle John's City Garden

How does this city garden grow? With help from L’il Sissy and her siblings—and love, love, love! A celebration of nature, family, and food.

Berry Song by Michaela Goade

Just as her grandmother did when they picked berries together in Sheet’ká, Alaska, author-illustrator Michaela Goade (the first Native American to win a Caldecott Medal) imparts important lessons of her Tlingit culture to readers in her new book, Berry Song . In the story, a grandmother goes berry picking in the forest with her granddaughter, all the while singing “Salmonberry, Cloudberry, Blueberry, Nagoonberry. Huckleberry, Soapberry, Strawberry, Crowberry,” to let “berry—and bear—know we are here.” While the refrain calls to mind Bruce Degen’s classic Jamberry , the message of Berry Song hits much deeper. Goade shows how the Tlingit people speak to the land, care for the land and are part of the land. To the land, which gives so much in return, the story’s characters say gunalchéesh , or “thank you” in the Tlingit language. The book’s endpapers are illustrated with berries labeled in both English and Tlingit—highbush cranberry ( kaxwéix ), lingonberry ( dáxw ), black currant ( kaneilts’ákw ) and more.

In my family, berry picking is a near-sacred ritual, but hopefully others will find Goade’s book as moving as it was for me. (Recommended ages: 4 to 8)

Berry Song (Caldecott Honor Book)

Caldecott Medalist Michaela Goade's first self-authored picture book is a gorgeous celebration of the land she knows well and the powerful wisdom of elders.

The Three Billy Goats Gruff by Mac Barnett

Author Mac Barnett takes on the fairy tale, first collected in Norway in 1841, of The Three Billy Goats Gruff . The basic plot likely rings familiar: Three billy goats, often described as brothers, need to cross a bridge, under which lives a hungry troll, to get to a meadow with grass for grazing. The smallest goat convinces the mean troll to wait for his bigger brother to cross, and that one, in turn, persuades him to hold out for the biggest of the three, only for that biggest one to defeat the adversary. Barnett’s version largely sticks to the script, only it’s full of “amusing verbal play,” as Kirkus Reviews puts it, that will have readers “hamming it up.” What provides the most entertainment is the troll’s “unexpected gastronomic sophistication,” explains Publisher’s Weekly . “I love goat! Let me count the ways! Goat Benedict with hollandaise. Goat jerky, jerk goat, curried goat. Goat gravy in a silver boat. A goat flambé with candied yams. A goat clambake, with goat, not clams! On goat I’ll dine, on goat I’ll sup. You little goat, I’ll eat you up!’” the troll rhymes. Kids in your life with thank you for adding this fresh fairy-tale remake to their shelves. And Barnett promises it’s the first in a series. He’s got my attention. (Recommended ages: 4 to 8)

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

A brilliantly crafted, hilarious twist on this beloved classic, The Three Billy Goats Gruff , from renowned, award-winning, and New York Times bestselling duo and picture book pioneers Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen!

Octopuses Have Zero Bones: A Counting Book About Our Amazing World by Anne Richardson

During Covid-19 lockdowns in the spring of 2020, Anne Richardson and her two kids obsessed over numbers. “How many seeds are in an apple, how small are hummingbird eggs, and how many miles away is Saturn?” she writes in her author’s note. They counted and measured, until Richardson realized she had enough facts and figures to fill her debut children’s book, Octopuses Have Zero Bones . With degrees in art history and environmental studies, the senior staffer at San Francisco’s Exploratorium was perfectly suited to deliver an artful romp through math and science. The book works its way from zero to nine, providing three facts for each number. With each number also comes a power of 10 (1 and 10, 2 and 200, 3 and 3,000), with three bonus facts about it.

Kids stump the best of us with their questions, but Richardson’s clever counting book is prepared for the most inquisitive readers, bringing answers to fresh questions they may not even have thought to ask. Like, how fast does a black bear’s heart beat? The answer: 3,000 times every hour during much of the year. (Recommended ages: 6 to 9)

Octopuses Have Zero Bones: A Counting Book About Our Amazing World

An unconventional, engaging, and delightful counting book for curious minds that playfully uses numbers as an entry-point to discover the amazing, diverse, fact-filled world of wonders all around us.

How Was That Built? The Stories Behind Awesome Structures by Roma Agrawal

Structural engineer Roma Agrawal wrote Built for adults in 2018, and now, four years later, she’s adapted that same concept, explaining how the world’s greatest architectural wonders were made to a younger audience. In her new release, How Was That Built? , she examines the ingenuity behind structures the world over—from the Shard in London, which she helped design, to the Pantheon in Rome, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the Halley VI Research Station in Antarctica.

I like a big book that allows me to make a short selection to read at bedtime, and this one has so many entry points. How Was That Built? contains illustrations of skyscrapers, cathedrals, bridges, dams and more, all annotated with fun factoids. Agrawal also spotlights innovators and provides “Try It at Home” experiments that demonstrate the forces that act on built structures. The book is perfect for Lego-obsessed fort builders in your life who spent their toddler years hovering near construction sites. Agrawal would also encourage you to give it to a child who hasn’t yet shown much interest in math and science, though. The Indian British American engineer has made it her mission to open doors for marginalized communities, specifically girls and women of color, who may not consider engineering for a career. (Recommended ages: 6 to 9)

How Was That Built?: The Stories Behind Awesome Structures

This striking book explains the feats of engineering behind the world's most impressive architectural marvels.

Nellie vs. Elizabeth: Two Daredevil Journalists’ Breakneck Race Around the World by Kate Hannigan

At Smithsonian , it is part of our mission to tell the stories of hidden figures in American history, and so I would be remiss to not include a picture book biography on this list. Kate Hannigan’s Nellie vs. Elizabeth stands out of this year’s bunch. Rather than a dry, dense read, as many in the subgenre sadly are, this book is “swiftly paced,” as Publisher’s Weekly puts it, as it follows on the heels of rival reporters Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland in their 1889-1890 race to circumnavigate the globe in opposite directions. The book was released just in time for the 150th anniversary of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days —a record the two intrepid travelers were dead set on beating. Hannigan’s background in newspaper journalism—her résumé includes stints at the Dallas Morning News and San Francisco Chronicle —shows, as she weaves in quotes from Bly and Bisland and reportage of the competition from 15 different publications. (Recommended ages: 7 to 10)

Nellie vs. Elizabeth: Two Daredevil Journalists' Breakneck Race around the World

In this real-life adventure, daredevil and groundbreaking journalists Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland race against each other–and the clock–as they circle the globe by ship, train, and foot.

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A Note to our Readers Smithsonian magazine participates in affiliate link advertising programs. If you purchase an item through these links, we receive a commission.

Megan Gambino | | READ MORE

Megan Gambino is a senior web editor for Smithsonian magazine.

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Editor's picks.

• Jo’s Special Gifts, by Mariam Shapera | Dedicated Review

Jo’s Special Gifts by Mariam Shapera, illustrated by Lorna Humphreys, is a picture book that celebrates the unique gifts and perspectives of an autistic child.

• How to Make a Sandwich | Dedicated Review

How to Make a Sandwich by Lorena M. Proia is a charming children’s picture book that blends good old-fashioned storytelling with joyful illustrations.

Else B. in the Sea: The Woman Who Painted the Wonders of the Deep | Dedicated Review

Else B. in the Sea is a captivating journey into the depths of the ocean, chronicling the extraordinary life of Else Bostelmann.

Books by Age

• Teens: Young Adults

The Best New Audiobooks for Little Listeners

This month’s best audiobooks for the littlest listeners among us are full of variety, from a history of Brazilian capoeira to a picture book all about berries!

Coyote Lost and Found, by Dan Gemeinhart | Book Review

Play with me, by kat chen | dedicated review, black girl you are atlas, by renée watson | book review, legends of lotus island: the guardian test | book review, the growing readers podcast, growing readers’ hearts: an interview with dan gemeinhart on coyote lost and found.

Facing Fears Together with Alysson Foti Bourque and ‘Alycat and the Sunday Scaries’

Andrea wang weaves threads of belonging: exploring identity in ‘summer at squee’, poetry insights from jane yolen on crafting words, wisdom, and wonder, exploring love and light in ‘ferris’ with kate dicamillo, growing readers: reading and writing tips, haiku for kids: how to teach it and what to avoid, reading milestones: how to identify progress and seek support for a child, reading as a love language between children and their parents, teaching about civil rights leaders in the classroom through literacy, books for national poetry month, the dreamer, by pam muñoz ryan | book review.

Pam Muñoz Ryan’s narrative brilliance and Peter Sís’s evocative illustrations make The Dreamer a must-read that not only entertains but also inspires readers.

Mz Millipede: Tale Ticklers | Dedicated Review

Math made fun the books you need now, the seven silly eaters, by mary ann hoberman | book review, tales of whimsy, verses of woe | dedicated review, recent posts, eliott and the red boots, by seth hunt | dedicated review.

Eliott and the Red Boots is instructive and enjoyable to read—great for shared reading. Readers are shown the value of having family traditions.

The Gold Mystery Adventure, by Randy Kaufman | Dedicated Review

The Gold Mystery Adventure is a futuristic adventure with a richly imagined world of underwater cities, metallic monsters, and space travel.

Best Dinosaur Ever, by Lori Rotter | Dedicated Review

Mama’s love language: sometimes love tastes like hainan chicken rice | dedicated review, ‘looking for the eid moon’ and ‘the ramadan drummer’ | dedicated review, do the voices too, by melinda issakov | dedicated review, virtual book awareness tours.

• Jo’s Special Gifts, by Mariam Shapera | Awareness Tour

Join us on a virtual book tour for the heartwarming picture book Jo’s Special Gifts by Mariam Shapera, illustrated by Lorna Humphreys.

• How to Make a Sandwich, by Lorena M. Proia | Awareness Tour

Attention book lovers! You’re invited to join the virtual book tour for Lorena M. Proia’s delightful new picture book, How to Make a Sandwich!

Else B. in the Sea: The Woman Who Painted the Wonders of the Deep | Awareness Tour

Dive deep with us as we explore the world of Else B. in the Sea: The Woman Who Painted the Wonders of the Deep by Jeanne Walker Harvey.

Mama’s Love Language: Sometimes Love Tastes Like Hainan Chicken Rice | Awareness Tour

Immerse yourself in the pages of Mama’s Love Language: Sometimes Love Tastes Like Hainan Chicken Rice by Elisa Stad and Ry Menson.

Play with Me, by Kat Chen | Awareness Tour

Is your toddler looking for someone to play with? Join us on a picnic playdate as we explore Kat Chen’s board book Play with Me!

Little Red Driving Hood and the Three Repairs | Awareness Tour

Gear up for a virtual adventure on the literary highway! Join us for the virtual book tour of Little Red Driving Hood and the Three Repairs by Stacey Rayz!

Roar-Choo! by Charlotte Cheng | Awareness Tour

Join us on an enchanting journey through the pages of Roar-Choo! by Charlotte Cheng, beautifully illustrated by Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator Dan Santat.

Milo and His Magic Skateboard | Awareness Tour

Kristina Tanso’s Milo and His Magic Skateboard isn’t just a fun travel narrative—it’s also a story about the value of friendship .

Fairy Day Games, by Mari Sherkin | Awareness Tour

Step into the enchanting realm of Fairy Day Games, a delightful children’s book penned by the imaginative Mari Sherkin! Get ready to be spellbound.

Miranda Moose Loves Orange Juice | Awareness Tour

Join us on a journey through the pages of Miranda Moose Loves Orange Juice by Melanie Brazdzionis, joyfully illustrated by Ning Loo!

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American Ramble review: a riveting tale of the divided United States

Neil King Jr, once of the Wall Street Journal, walked from Washington to New York. His account of the journey is essential

I n spring 2021, Neil King trekked 330 miles from his Washington DC home to New York City. He passed through countryside, highways, towns and churchyards. His 25-day walk was also a journey through time. He looked at the US as it was and is and how it wishes to be seen. His resultant book is a beautifully written travelog, memoir, chronicle and history text. His prose is mellifluous, yet measured.

In his college days, King drove a New York cab. At the Wall Street Journal , his remit included politics, terror and foreign affairs. He did a stint as global economics editor. One might expect him to be jaded. Fortunately, he is not. American Ramble helps make the past come alive.

In Lancaster, Pennsylvania , King stops at the home of James Buchanan, the bachelor president from 1857 to 1861, who sympathized with the south and loathed abolition. Ending slavery could wait. Of the supreme court’s infamous Dred Scott decision, Buchanan highly approved.

Also in Lancaster, King visits a townhouse once owned by Thaddeus Stevens, the 19th-century Republican congressman and radical abolitionist. At the start of the civil war, Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, viewed the conflict as the vehicle for preserving the Union. He opposed slavery but opposed secession more. For Stevens, slavery was an evil that demanded eradication.

Elsewhere in Pennsylvania , King describes how the ancestors of one town greeted Confederate troops as heroes while another just 20 miles away viewed them as a scourge. Forks in the road are everywhere.

King pays homage to the underground railroad, describing how the Mason-Dixon Line, the demarcation between north and south, free state and slave, came into being. Astronomy and borders had a lot to do with it. All of this emerges from the scenery and places King passes on his way.

Imagining George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware, he delivers a lesson on how such rivers came to be named. Names affixed to bodies of water by Indigenous peoples gave way to Dutch pronunciation, then anglicization. The Delaware, however, derived its moniker from Lord De La Warr, a “dubious aristocrat” otherwise known as Thomas West.

Yet joy and wonder suffuse King’s tale. He smiles on the maker’s handiwork, uneven as it is. American Ramble depicts a stirring sunset and nightfall through the roof-window of a Quaker meeting house. Quiet stands at the heart of the experience. The here and now is loud and messy, but King ably conveys the silent majesty of the moment. The Bible recounts the Deity’s meeting with the prophet Elijah. He was not in the wind, a fire or an earthquake. Rather, He resided in a whisper.

King recalls an earlier time in a Buddhist monastery. Warned that surrounding scenery would detract from solitude and commitment, he nevertheless succumbed. King is nothing if not curious.

The quotidian counts too. He pops cold beers, downs pizzas and snarfs chicken parmesan. A wanderer needs sustenance. He is grateful for the day following the night. Predictability is miraculous, at times invaluable.

King is a cancer survivor and a pilgrim. He is a husband and father, son and brother. Life’s fragility and randomness have left their mark. His malady is in remission but he moves like a man unknowing how long good fortune will last. His voice is a croak, a casualty of Lyme disease. He is restless. Life’s clock runs. He writes of how his brother Kevin lost his battle with a brain tumor.

King puts his head and heart on the page. His life story helps drive the narrative, a mixture of the personal, political and pastoral. But it is not only about him. He meets strangers who become friends, of a sort. At times, people treat him as an oddity – or simply an unwanted presence. More frequently, they are open if not welcoming. As his walk continues, word gets out. Minor celebrity results.

The author is awed by generosity, deprivation and the world. He is moved by a homeless woman and her daughter. Traversing the New Jersey Turnpike presents a near-insurmountable challenge. A mother and son offer him a kayak to paddle beneath the traffic. He accepts.

A Colorado native, King is at home in the outdoors. Nature is wondrous and sometimes disturbing. Rough waters complicate his passages. He studies heaps on a landfill. He meets a New Jerseyan with pickup truck adorned by Maga flags. The gentleman bestows beer, snacks and jokes. King divides the universe into “anywheres” and “somewheres”. He puts himself in the first camp and finds placed-ness all around.

American Ramble captures the religious and demographic topography that marks the mid-Atlantic and north-eastern US. Here, dissenters, Anabaptists, German pietists, Presbyterians and Catholics first landed. King pays homage to their pieces of turf. His reductionism is gentle. He appreciates the legacy of what came before him. Landscapes change, human nature less so, even as it remains unpredictable.

“When I crossed the Delaware two days before,” he writes, “I had entered what I later came to call Presbyteriana, a genteel and horsey patch settled by Presbyterians and Quakers.” Princeton University stands at its heart.

E pluribus unum was tough to pull off when the settlers came. It may even be tougher now. King quotes Nick Rizzo, a denizen of Staten Island, New York City’s Trumpy outer borough: “We are losing our ability to forge any unity at all from these United States.”

Rizzo joined King along the way. In the Canterbury Tales, April stands as the height of spring. It was prime time for religious pilgrimages, “what with Chaucer and all, and it being April”, Rizzo explains.

“Strangers rose to the occasion to provide invaluable moments,” King writes. Amen.

American Ramble: A Walk of Memory and Renewal is published in the US by HarperCollins

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Wall Street Journal's Best Books of 2023

The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions (Hardcover)

A Dictator Calls (Paperback)

The Lost Wife: A novel (Hardcover)

An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford (Paperback)

Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict (Hardcover)

Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution (Hardcover)

The Sun Walks Down: A Novel (Hardcover)

The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind (Hardcover)

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (Hardcover)

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The Wall Street Journal's 10 Best Books of the Year, 2021:

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler (Hardcover)

The INSTANT  New York Times Bestseller Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award  Winner of the Chautauqua Prize Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award Finalist for the Plutarch Award A New York Times Notable Book of 2021 A New

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (Hardcover)

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the world's leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and to other living things in the forest—a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery

Harrow: A novel (Hardcover)

In her first novel since the Pulitzer Prize–nominated The Quick and the Dead , the legendary writer takes us into an uncertain landscape after an environmental apocalypse, a world in which only the man-made has value, but some still wish to salvage the authentic.  

An Inventory of Losses (Paperback)

A dazzling book about memory and extinction from the author of Atlas of Remote Islands A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Financial Times Best Book of the Year Winner of the Warwick Prize Winner of the Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize

Look for Me and I'll Be Gone: Stories (Hardcover)

*A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Best Book of the Year* From John Edgar Wideman, a modern “master of language” ( The New York Times Book Review ), comes a stunning story collection that spans a range of topics from Michael Jordan to Emmett Till, from childhood memories to the final day in a prison cell. In Look For Me and I’ll Be Gone ,

The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family (Paperback)

WINNER OF THE 2022 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD WINNER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2021 A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF 2021 A KIRKUS BEST FICTION BOOK OF 2021

Robert E. Lee: A Life (Hardcover)

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the award-winning historian and best-selling author of Gettysburg comes the definitive biography of Robert E. Lee. An intimate look at the Confederate general in all his complexity—his hypocrisy and courage, his inner turmoil and outward calm, his disloyalty and his honor.

The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict (Hardcover)

Why and how America’s defense strategy must change in light of China’s power and ambition—A Wall Street Journal best book of 2021   “This is a realist’s book, laser-focused on China’s bid for mastery in Asia as the 21st century’s most important threat.”—Ross Douthat, New York Times  

The Transcendentalists and Their World (Hardcover)

One of The Wall Street Journal 's 10 best books of 2021 One of Air Mail 's 10 best books of 2021 Winner of the Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize

Voyagers: The Settlement of the Pacific (Hardcover)

An award-winning scholar explores the sixty-thousand-year history of the Pacific islands in this dazzling, deeply researched account. One of the Best Books of 2021 —  Wall Street Journal The islands of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia stretch across a huge expanse of ocean and encompass a multitude of different peoples.

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Children’s Books: Small, But Growing

M o Willems puts a new spin on concepts of relative size in “Are You Big?” His collage artwork in this simple but entertaining picture book for 4- to 8-year-olds is brash and fun, with sharp color contrasts and comic exaggeration.

The first pages show a smiling stylized child and the question: “Are you big?” On the next page, the child is tiny when placed beside a large and benevolent-looking orb: “A hot air balloon is big.” Onward the comparisons go, each substantial thing (a storm, Australia, the moon) being dwarfed in turn by one even more substantial. Eventually Mr. Willems takes the reader from the Milky Way to the larger M100 Galaxy to what, in the book at any rate, is the biggest thing of all: a cluster of galaxies. A table at the end puts numbers to the relative sizes—e.g., “the earth is 49 times larger in volume than the moon.” A wry comment notes that Mr. Willems’s illustrations “are fictional representations and not true to scale.” A picture book that could hold a real galaxy—now that would be something to see.

In the vibrant pages of, “Later, When I’m Big,”the world appears vast to a small girl who imagines herself one day performing all sorts of bold and risky deeds. Written by Bette Westera and illustrated by Mattias De Leeuw, and translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson, this endearing picture book shows a child and her mother making their way into a large indoor swimming complex. The little girl is evidently daunted by some aspect of the outing—maybe the giant yellow water slides, maybe the prospect of a cold dunk—so to buck herself up she announces that when she’s big she will “dare to do lots and lots of things.”

In beautiful and spacious watercolors, we see how she imagines herself helping a zookeeper to brush the teeth of colossal lions and tigers, tearing across open country on the back of a stallion, and “swimming without arm floaties through waves that touch the sky.” The sweet way the child toggles between future actions that are likely (swimming in the sea) and those that are impossible (diving with a mermaid) shows how young she is; the images of her, especially one in which she steers a rubber dinghy past the hulls of huge container ships, show how small she feels. “Later, When I’m Big” offers endearing consolation for children ages 3-7 who, in the manner of St. Augustine, fully intend to live up to their potential at some point, but “not just yet.”

Sally Nicholls returns to an old-fashioned mode of communication with a beguilingly old-fashioned novel for teenagers set in Britain at the end of the 19th century. What gives “Yours From the Tower” its retro feel is not merely that it consists almost entirely of letters between dear friends who have no other means of communicating but also that the characters belong to their own time and not to ours. Such historical fealty on the part of any author is vanishingly rare in an era where the dictates of representation call for young-adult novels, certainly, to have at least several characters who are gay, disabled or of some supposedly marginalized heritage.

Ms. Nicholls checks none of the faddish boxes, though through her young characters she does muse on the vagaries of social class and the frustration of brainy girls in a society that discouraged their participation in higher education and the workforce. The novel presents us with former school chums Sophia, Tirzah and Polly, who are leading very different lives as they reach the age of marriage.

Penniless Sophia, under the sponsorship of a wealthy aunt, is swept up in the whirl of parties that comprises London’s “season” while wrestling with whether she ought to marry for money or love. The idealistic Polly is teaching at a Liverpool orphanage, where she cares lovingly for her young charges while falling for the fellow in charge. Unhappy Tirzah writes from Scotland, where she’s under what feels like house arrest with a dour grandmother while trying to solve the mystery of her own parentage.

Readers ages 11-16 won’t really be in doubt as to the likelihood of happy endings for all, but the pleasure of a romantic read like “Yours From the Tower” is less in the outcome than in the delicious catharsis of watching the characters overcome obstacles.

Update: Submitting Your Book For A Book Review

by Jeniffer Thompson | Dec 5, 2019 | Author Marketing , Digital Marketing , Selling Your Book | 2 comments

Book Reviews Are Essential To Your Marketing Strategy

Congratulations! You’ve put in the time, energy and research into writing and publishing your very first book! But now what? Well, getting a few book reviews is a good start.

When the time rolls around to start marketing your book, you may feel like there’s too much to do that may be outside your experience or comfort zone—like getting book reviews, for example. But that’s why I’ve written this handy guide for you, dear Authors. Whether your goal is establishing credibility, creating a passive income stream, or just getting your work out there in the world, you’ll need to do quite a bit of marketing for your book to land in the hands of your intended audience. And book reviews are a great way to do that!  You should be putting as much, if not more, time, energy, and dedication into marketing your book as you did writing and publishing it. After all, what’s the point of writing a book if no one ever reads it? 

A Good Book Review is a Boon for Indie Authors!

One of the best ways to market your book is by getting reviews. In fact, good reviews are essential. They increase your visibility and establish trust with your potential audience.  Places like Amazon and Good Reads are excellent platforms for receiving reviews from your audience, your followers, and readers—which translates to more visibility and possibly more book sales. Readers trust the opinions of other readers! But when it comes to industry clout and exposure, you’ll want to submit your book to dedicated book review journals and organizations.  Many of these book review platforms offer your book exposure to distributors, libraries, and book stores, as well as readers. 

Here Are Nine of the Best Places to Submit Your Book for Review

Foreword Indie Reviews

The Foreword Indie offers free reviews, but those are somewhat limited(to 150 per issue) and depend on the quality of the book. They also offer a few paid options, if your book doesn’t make the cut. This is a prestigious and trusted publication, and a favorable review here can really do a lot to boost your book!

Readers’ Favorite

A review from Readers’ Favorite offers authors a lot of value. And they’re free! Your review will not only be published on their website, their social media along with trade sites, but will be indexed by search engines. I definitely suggest you check out this review platform and see the other benefits and resources Readers’ Favorite has to offer.

Reader Views

Reader Views publishes reviews by readers with a variety of interests and backgrounds, which means a good cross section of people that are like your potential audience will be reviewing your book. Reviews are posted on their site and you have rights to use the reviews as part of your book promotion. Reviews are totally free and they also offer affordable publicity packages!

Book List is a biweekly publication put out by the American Library Association. This is an invaluable source if you want to get your book into the hands of librarians, and into libraries, so it can reach library patrons and students. 

Book Reporter  

Book Reporter is a bi-monthly online publication that offers reviews as well as author profiles, book excerpts, and contests. They do not review every book, though they consider every pitch. They usually publish reviews within three months. Pssst…It’s a great space to check out what your peers and competitors are up to as well. It’s worth noting that they don’t review Self Help, Health, Religion, or Travel Guides. 

Blue Ink Review

Blue Ink Review not only publishes daily, but it’s a user-friendly online resource aimed at increasing distribution. This review was founded by a literary agent and a book review editor. These ladies are in the business and know their stuff, so I say if it’s in your budget, give Blue Ink a shot! 

Rain Taxi Review of Books  

Rain Taxi is published online and in print quarterly. Its aim is to support writers in all stages of their careers and to give attention to books outside the mainstream. It stands out because it reviews art books and graphic novels as well. So if that’s your thing, then this a good place for you! 

Book Life is the website from Publishers Weekly dedicated to indie and self-published authors. It’s a fabulous resource for writers and offers author profiles, and interviews which can increase exposure as well. I highly recommend you check this out and submit your book for review here. 

LibraryThing

LibraryThing offers an online community for book lovers. They offer a space for readers to catalog their books in one easy spot. Plus, its a social space where other readers can check out your collection and read your reviews (similar to Goodreads). Plus, you’ll find like-readers and get recommendations on what to read next. A review from a LibraryThing member can go along way to getting more visibility for your book. (Thanks to John Tuteur for recommending that I add this great resource to my list).

Well, there you have it!

So follow the links, and submit your book for review! I’ve already done the searching for you, so all you have to do is take a few minutes to fill out their submission forms. It will be minutes well spent, trust me! Oh, and if you’re wanting to submit your book for an award, go to my updated book award submission list.

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What about Kirkus and Readers Favorite?

Hi Robert! Thanks for the suggestion of Reader’s Favorite! Kirkus wasn’t included simply because it isn’t a free source. I guess I should have added, “For Free” in my title! I appreciate your feedback.

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