This year has delivered some incredible reading material for children and teens. Our 2023 Best Children's and YA Books encompass titles of varying genres across age ranges--including read-alouds, early chapter books, poetic middle-grade, and introspective nonfiction for young adults. Beautifully illustrated picture books feature tasty spreads of bread, dancing literary figures, and trouble-making kittens. Middle-grade readers will find touching memoirs filled with art, hilarious and courageous fiction, and meticulously researched histories. And our young adult picks highlight horror--both fiction and non--as well as adorable first-like stories. Click through to read our reviews of the top kids' picks for 2023. (Shelf Awareness's Best Adult Books will be announced December 1.)
Young Readers
The Only Way to Make Bread by Cristina Quintero, illus. by Sarah Gonzales (Tundra Books)
There Was a Party for Langston by Jason Reynolds, illus. by Jerome Pumphrey and Jarrett Pumphrey (Caitlin Dlouhy/Atheneum)
10 Cats by Emily Gravett (Boxer Books/Union Square & Co.)
Something, Someday by Amanda Gorman, illus. by Christian Robinson (Viking Books for Young Readers)
A Walk in the Woods by Nikki Grimes, illus. by Jerry Pinkney and Brian Pinkney (Neal Porter Books)
The Skull: A Tyrolean Folktale by Jon Klassen (Candlewick)
Middle Grade
Just Jerry: How Drawing Shaped My Life by Jerry Pinkney (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow (Disney Hyperion)
Kin: Rooted in Hope by Carole Boston Weatherford and Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
102 Days of Lying About Lauren by Maura Jortner (Holiday House)
A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat (First Second)
Nearer My Freedom: The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano by Himself by Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge (Zest Books/Lerner)
When Clouds Touch Us by Thanhhà Lai (HarperCollins)
The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln, illus. by Claire Powell (Dutton Books for Young Readers)
Young Adult
Before the Devil Knows You're Here by Autumn Krause (Peachtree Teen)
Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed by Dashka Slater (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam by Thien Pham (First Second)
Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli (Balzer + Bray)
Stars in their Eyes: A Graphic Novel by Jessica Walton and Aśka (Graphix/Scholastic)
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White (Peachtree Teen)