Friday, December 23, 2022

From Our Bookshelves 2022

As we wrap up 2022, we enthusiastically recommend sixteen of our favorite books from this year.  We love discovering books that make us want to read and re-read them—books that we can’t wait to share with the children in our lives.  We hope you enjoy them, too.

Picture Books:

  • Mina by Matthew Forsythe
  • Rodney Was a Tortoise by Nan Forler, illustrated by Yong Ling Kang
  • Somewhere in the Bayou by Jarrett Pumphrey, illustrated by Jerome Pumphrey
  • Knight Owl by Christopher Denise
  • The Depth of the Lake and the Height of the Sky by Jihyun Kim
  • Farmhouse by Sophie Blackall
  • A Bear, A Bee, and a Honey Tree by Daniel Bernstrom, illustrated by Brandon James Scott

Fiction:

  • Healer & Witch by Nancy Werlin
  • The Bluest Sky by Christina Diaz Gonzalez
  • Black Bird, Blue Road by Sofiya Pasternack
  • Swim Team by Johnnie Christmas

Folktales:

  • The Three Billy Goats Gruff by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen

Nonfiction:

  • Solitary Animals: Introverts of the Wild by Joshua David Stein, illustrated by Dominique Ramsey
  • A Seed Grows by Antoinette Portis
  • Unbreakable: The Spies Who Cracked the Nazis’ Secret Code by Rebecca E. F. Barone
Poetry:
  • Ain't Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Jason Griffin

If you are looking for more book recommendations, browse these best-of-the year lists and award winners.

Bookpage Best Middle Grade and Chapter Books of 2022  

Bookpage Best Picture Books of 2022  

Horn Book Fanfare 2022  

Kirkus Best Picture Books of 2022  

Kirkus Best Middle-Grade Books of 2022  

NCTE Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children 2023

NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children 2023  

The New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children's Books of 2022  

Publishers Weekly Best Children's and YA Books 2022  

School Library Journal Best Books of 2022