eBranch Blog

March 20, 2008

2008 Notable Children's Books and Recordings

Each year the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) identifies the best of the best in children's books and recordings.

The 2008 Notable Children's Books list is divided into Younger Readers, Middle Readers, Older Readers and All Ages. Some titles from this list are:

Nancy Coffelt. Fred Stays with Me!
A child describes how she lives sometimes with her mother and sometimes with her father, but her dog is her constant companion.

Ellen Levine. Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad
A fictionalized account of how in 1849 a Virginia slave, Henry "Box" Brown, escapes to freedom by shipping himself in a wooden crate from Richmond to Philadelphia.

Tim Wynne-Jones. Rex Zero and the End of the World
In the summer of 1962 with everyone nervous about a possible nuclear war, ten-nearly-eleven-year-old Rex, having just moved to Ottawa from Vancouver with his parents and five siblings, faces his own personal challenges as he discovers new friends and a new understanding of the world around him.

From the 2008 Notable Children's Recordings list:

Sara Pennypacker. Clementine
While sorting through difficulties in her friendship with her neighbor Margaret, eight-year-old Clementine gains several unique hairstyles while also helping her father in his efforts to banish pigeons from the front of their apartment building. Narrated by Jessica Almasy.

Walter Dean Myers. Jazz
From bebop to New Orleans, from ragtime to boogie--and every style in between--this collection of energetic poems, accompanied by bright and exhilarating paintings, celebrates different styles of the American art form, jazz. Performed by James "D-Train" Williams and Vaneese Thomas.

Gary D. Schmidt. The Wednesday Wars
During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker's classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value about the world he lives in. Read by Joel Johnstone.