CCBC Choices 2016
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CCBC Choices 2016 Join the Friends of the CCBC! The Friends underwrite the cost of this annualCCBC Choices publication and support the Cooperative Children’s Book Center in numerous other ways. Please consider joining if you aren’t a member! (See Appendix IV for more about the Friends.) Individual Memberships $10 Student/Retiree $20 Personal $30 Sustaining/Family $50 Supporting $100+ Patron $500+ Distinguished Patron Institutional Memberships $75 Honor (2–5 individuals) $150 Award (6–10 individuals) $500 Distinguished (11–15 individuals) $1,000+ Corporate Make check payable to: Friends of the CCBC, Inc. Mail to: Friends of the CCBC, P.O. Box 5189, Madison, WI 53705 Name ________________________________________________________ Position ______________________________________________________ Address ______________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ City ______________________ State ________ Zip Code______________ Telephone (w) _______________________ (h) ______________________ Email _______________________________________________________ Please do NOT add me to the Friends listserv. CCBC Choices 2016 Kathleen T. Horning Merri V. Lindgren Megan Schliesman Emily McKnight Townsend Cooperative Children’s Book Center School of Education University of Wisconsin–Madison Copyright ©2016, Friends of the CCBC, Inc. ISBN–10: 0–931641–26–8 ISBN–13: 978–0–931641–26–8 CCBC Choices 2016 was produced by the office of University Marketing, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Cover design: Lois Ehlert This publication was created by librarians at the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, School of Education, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Funding for the production and printing was provided by the Friends of the CCBC, Inc. CCBC Choices 2016 3 Contents Acknowledgments .............................................4 Introduction ..................................................5 Organization of CCBC Choices 2016 ..............................6 The Charlotte Zolotow Award ....................................8 A Few Observations: Literature in 2015 ...........................10 The Choices Science, Technology, and the Natural World .....................14 Seasons and Celebrations ....................................19 Historical People, Places, and Events ...........................20 Biography and Autobiography ................................30 Contemporary People, Places, and Events .......................34 Understanding Oneself and Others ............................35 The Arts .................................................36 Poetry ..................................................42 Concept Books ...........................................44 Picture Books for Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers ...............46 Picture Books for School-Age Children .........................63 Books for Newly Independent Readers .........................75 Fiction for Children ........................................76 Fiction for Young Adults ....................................89 Appendices Appendix I: Checklist of Books in CCBC Choices 2016 ...........110 Appendix II: Informational Nonfiction Titles in CCBC Choices 2016 ..116 Appendix III: About the CCBC .............................118 Appendix IV: The Friends of the CCBC, Inc ....................119 Author/Illustrator/Title Index ..................................122 Subject Index ...............................................129 4 CCBC Choices 2016 Acknowledgments The Friends of the CCBC underwrites the publication ofCCBC Choices each year, making Choices available free of charge to Wisconsin librarians, teachers, and others in the state. Thank you to the current Friends board of directors and Friends members in Wisconsin and beyond. (For more information about the Friends of the CCBC, see Appendix IV.) Johanna Boyle and Rebecca Pettyjohn, two CCBC student employees, graciously and gracefully took on copyediting tasks, for which we are grateful. Thank you to content reviewers Anne Altshuler and Debbie Reese, each of whom we asked for a critical review of one or more titles we were considering. Thank you also to the staff in Creative Services at University Marketing who work on Choices: Preston Schmitt, Danielle Lawry, and Kent Hamele. We couldn’t create Choices without the support of our student staff, who handle many day-to-day responsibilities. The following individuals worked at the CCBC during 2015 and early 2016: Erin Augspurger (2015), Johanna Boyle, Marissa Gehrke, Beth Hennes (2015), Sammy Jackson, Dana Johnson, Erin Look (2015), Rachel Milani (2015), Mary Ostrander (2015), Rebecca Pettyjohn, Nora Scholl, Naomi Skulan, Paula Steigerwald (2015), and Carolyn Vidmar (2015). Finally, thanks to our families for their understanding of how much time we spend reading at home. Kathleen T. Horning, Merri V. Lindgren, Megan Schliesman, and Emily McKnight Townsend Bios of the Choices authors are available on the CCBC web site at ccbc.education.wisc.edu/about/staffbio.asp CCBC Choices 2016 5 Introduction CCBC Choices is created by librarians at the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC), a library of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (see Appendix III for more about the CCBC). The CCBC received review copies of about 3,400 new books for children and young adults in 2015, which include most of the trade books published in English by corporate publishers in the United States. While we couldn’t possibly read everything, we have read extensively, looking for books that get us excited about the ways they can engage and inform children and teens. Among the 259 books we’ve chosen, we are sure you will find numerous titles to meet the needs and interests of the children and teens in your professional or personal lives. We are often asked how we choose books for CCBC Choices. We don’t have a formal checklist of criteria, but there are a number of factors we consider, including literary and artistic quality, accuracy, authenticity, and credibility. We may also consider a book because it offers unique or unusual content, especially when we know there is a need for and interest in books on that topic based on our discussions with teachers, librarians, and others who work directly with children and teens. Sometimes there are books we appreciate even as we have questions about one or more elements in them. We depend upon further discussion, thinking, research, and sometimes other opinions to determine how those strengths and shortcomings balance, and to determine whether the book ends up a Choice. If we have questions we’re unable to answer, we try to get informed opinions from expert content reviewers, especially with regard to the depiction of race, culture, and other dimensions of experience we may not be personally qualified to evaluate. Sometimes we disagree about individual titles. Again, we talk about our differences of opinion. If we can’t come to agreement, the book is not a Choice. Ultimately, our goal is to create list of books that we are excited about sharing and can stand behind with confidence. That we can do so year after year speaks to the immense creativity of authors and artists writing and illustrating books for children and teens. 6 CCBC Choices 2016 Organization of CCBC Choices 2016 We organize CCBC Choices into thematic and format categories to help teachers, school and public librarians, and others who work with children and teens quickly find books that meet their needs. We often make refinements from year to year in the organization, in part due to our ever-growing understanding of what our colleagues who work directly with youth want and need, and in part to reflect the books we have chosen in a particular year. This year, we have added an Appendix identifying all informational nonfiction titles (Appendix II). Picture books about people who actually lived have usually been placed in the Historical People, Places, and Events; Arts; or Biography and Autobiography section, unless the narrative is purely fictionalized. Novels set in the past have been placed in one of the Fiction categories. Graphic novels are assessed individually based on content and placed in the category that best suits each individual title depending on whether it is fiction or nonfiction. The subject index can be used to find books about specific topics and in specific genres and formats (“Graphic Novels,” “Historical Fiction,” “Fantasy,” etc.). And, as noted above, Appendix II can be used to identify all the nonfiction books of information. Age Recommendations Our suggested age ranges for each title are meant to be general guidelines based on appeal and accessibility of the content. We know that some children and teens are ready for and will enjoy books recommended for older readers. Our suggested age recommendations cannot substitute for professional judgment and personal knowledge of individual readers, classrooms, and communities. There is considerable overlap of ages in the two picture book categories as well as in the fiction categories. Given the wide range of individual variation among readers, we encourage you to look through both age categories for each genre. For consistency of organization, we have divided the books as follows: • Picture Books for Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers: lower age recommendation is three or younger (e.g., Ages 1–4, Ages 3–6) • Picture Books for School-Age Children: lower age recommendation is four or older (e.g., Ages 4–7, Ages 6–10) • Fiction for Children: lower age recommendation