Our 2020 Best Children's & Teen Books of the Year

This challenging year has given us a number of outstanding children's and young adult titles. Here are our top picks for 2020; click here to read our reviews of these impressive books. (Shelf Awareness's Best Adult Books will be announced December 1.)

Picture Books
The Old Truck by Jarrett Pumphrey, Jerome Pumphrey (Norton Young Readers)
Every Color of Light: A Book About the Sky by Hiroshi Osada, trans. by David Boyd, illus. by Ryôji Arai (Enchanted Lion Books)
We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, illus. by Michaela Goade (Roaring Brook Press)
I Talk Like a River by Jordan Scott, illus. by Sydney Smith (Neal Porter Books/Holiday House)
All Because You Matter by Tami Charles, illus. by Bryan Collier (Orchard Books/Scholastic)
Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera by Candace Fleming, illus. by Eric Rohmann (Neal Porter Books/Holiday House)

Chapter and Middle Grade Books
Skunk and Badger by Amy Timberlake, illus. by Jon Klassen (Algonquin Young Readers)
All Thirteen: The Incredible Rescue of the Thai Boys' Soccer Team by Christina Soontornvat (Candlewick Press)
Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park (Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan (Scholastic Press)
The List of Things that Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead (Wendy Lamb/Random House)
Trowbridge Road by Marcella Pixley (Candlewick Press)
King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender (Scholastic Press)

Young Adult Books
Tigers, Not Daughters by Samantha Mabry (Algonquin Young Readers)
The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta (Balzer + Bray)
Apple (Skin to the Core) by Eric Gansworth (Levine Querido)
A Phoenix First Must Burn: Sixteen Stories of Black Girl Magic, Resistance, and Hope, edited by Patrice Caldwell (Viking)
Punching the Air by Yusef Salaam and Ibi Zoboi (Balzer & Bray)
Dark and Deepest Red by Anna-Marie McLemore (Feiwel & Friends)
Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, illus. by Rovina Cai (Levine Querido)

 

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