Our 2024 Best Children's and YA Books list includes a wide range of topics and styles for children and teens. Early readers will find nonfiction titles about Roy DeCarava, an artistic collaborator of Langston Hughes, and Rosetta Wakeman, a young woman who fought for the Union in the Civil War, as well as fiction about poisonous plants, the miracle of puppy birth, space travelers and more. Middle-grade readers can explore fantasy worlds, time travel, and even learn how to make some delicious barbeque. And our young adult picks feature surrealism, nonfiction, a hint of magical realism, and some utterly fabulous graphic novels.
Click here to read our reviews of the top kids' titles for 2024. (Shelf Awareness's Best Adult Books will be announced December 20.)
Picture Book
Viewfinder by Christine D.U. Chung, Salwa Majoka (Tundra)
|Emma Full of Wonders by Elisha Cooper (Roaring Brook)
We Are Definitely Human by X. Fang (Tundra)
Everywhere Beauty Is Harlem: The Vision of Photographer Roy DeCarava by Gary Golio, E.B. Lewis (Calkins Creek/Astra)
Sashiko's Stitches by Sanae Ishida (WorthyKids)
Guts for Glory: The Story of Civil War Soldier Rosetta Wakeman by JoAnna Lapati (Eerdmans)
Millie Fleur's Poison Garden by Christy Mandin (Orchard/Scholastic)
Middle Grade
The Juneteenth Cookbook: Recipes and Activities for Kids and Families to Celebrate by Alliah L. Agostini and Taffy Elrod, illus. by Sawyer Cloud (becker&mayer! Kids/Quarto)
Amil and the After by Veera Hiranandani (Kokila/Penguin)
The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly (Greenwillow/Harper)
Wildful by Kengo Kurimoto (Groundwood)
Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell, illus. by Ashley Mackenzie (Knopf/RHCB)
The Things We Miss by Leah Stecher (Bloomsbury)
Young Adult
Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I'd Known by George M. Johnson, illus. by Charly Palmer (FSG)
Pick the Lock by A.S. King (Dutton)
The Art Thieves by Andrea Rogers (Levine Querido)
Ash's Cabin by Jen Wang (First Second/Macmillan)
Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White (Peachtree)
Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang, illus. by LeUyen Pham (First Second/Macmillan)
Twenty-Four Seconds from Now...: A Regular Love Story by Jason Reynolds (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books)