Children's

A Wrinkle in Time is a 1962 science fantasy novel by Madeleine L’Engle, and it is one of the few children’s books that reads differently at thirty than it did at ten. Not because the story changes, but because you notice what you missed: the precision of the theological scaffolding, the exact way L’Engle deploys…

Louis Sachar published Holes in August 1998, and within months it had swept up both the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and, the following year, the Newbery Medal. For a middle-grade novel about boys digging holes in a Texas desert, those prizes might sound unlikely. They are not. Holes is one of those…

In 1960, Scott O’Dell published a novel that almost did not exist. His first publisher turned it down because the protagonist was a girl rather than a boy. O’Dell held firm, found another publisher, and the following year Island of the Blue Dolphins won the Newbery Medal. The book has been in print ever since,…

Inside Out and Back Again is a novel in verse by Thanhha Lai, published in 2011 by HarperCollins. It tells the story of Hà, a ten-year-old girl growing up in Saigon in 1975 as the Vietnam War closes in. Hà’s father has been missing for nine years, and she has spent her whole life in…

The Definitive Novel of Black American Dignity Mildred D. Taylor published Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry in 1976, and it won the Newbery Medal the following year. It is widely considered one of the finest American children’s novels ever written and one of the most important pieces of historical fiction for young readers in…

Gothic Atmosphere, Genuine Scares John Bellairs published The House with a Clock in Its Walls in 1973, illustrated by Edward Gorey, and it launched a beloved series of gothic mysteries for children that extended through twelve books. It has remained in print for over fifty years and has introduced generations of young readers to horror…

Bridge to Terabithia is a children’s novel by Katherine Paterson, first published in October 1977 by Thomas Y. Crowell. It won the Newbery Medal in 1978 and has never gone out of print. In the nearly five decades since, it has become one of the most taught and most frequently challenged books in American elementary…

The Perfect Dark Fairy Tale Neil Gaiman published Coraline in 2002 as a novella for children – at 162 pages, it is unusually short for a standalone children’s novel – and it has become one of the defining works of contemporary children’s literature. It is precisely constructed, intensely atmospheric, and genuinely frightening in a way…

Neil Gaiman published The Graveyard Book in 2008, and it won the Newbery Medal, the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and the Carnegie Medal in the two years that followed. No other book has won all three. That fact alone is worth sitting with for a moment, because what it tells you is that critics…

A Book That Earns Its Emotional Power R.J. Palacio published Wonder in 2012, and it became one of the most widely read and widely taught middle-grade novels of the decade. By 2023 it had sold over 15 million copies worldwide. It has been adapted into a successful film, spawned companion novellas and a graphic novel…