This has been an incredible year for children's and teen books! Here are our favorites for 2018; scroll down to read our reviews of these impactful, captivating books. (Our Best Adult Books will be announced December 4.)
Picture Books
A Big Mooncake for Little Star by Grace Lin (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Julián Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love (Candlewick)
Dreamers by Yuyi Morales (Neal Porter/Holiday House)
The Field by Baptiste Paul, illus. by Jacqueline Alcántara (NorthSouth Books)
Mommy's Khimar by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow, illus. by Ebony Glenn (Salaam Reads/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Middle Grade Books
They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid's Poems by David Bowles (Cinco Puntos Press)
24 Hours in Nowhere by Dusti Bowling (Sterling Children's Books)
The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani (Dial)
The Season of Styx Malone by Kekla Magoon (Wendy Lamb/Random House)
The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang (First Second/Macmillan)
Teen Books
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (HarperTeen)
The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees by Don Brown (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers)
Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough (Dutton Books for Young Readers)
Sadie by Courtney Summers (Wednesday Books/Macmillan)
Chasing King's Killer: The Hunt for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Assassin by James L. Swanson (Scholastic)