Hello to members of ALSC!

I’m a writer at Slate magazine. This summer, we’re putting together an ambitious package recognizing the best picture books of the past 25 years. We’re hoping to highlight and explore the transformation of the medium that’s taken place over the past quarter-century, and to provide new parents a guide to the marvelous picture books that have been published since they were kids.

We’re asking illustrators, writers, editors, critics, and booksellers for their picks. And it’s important that we hear from children’s librarians, too! When my kids were little, it was their librarians who were instrumental in expanding my parental picture-book reading list beyond, you know, Margaret Wise Brown. So as we choose the best contemporary picture books, it’s only fitting we ask librarians for their input.

What are we asking of you? If you work with picture books and have opinions about your favorite recent(ish) publications, please let us know! Please send us a list of 5 picture books, published in 2000 or later, that you feel really reflect the best the form has to offer. We won’t publish your list but will use all the lists we get to help compile ours. We might return to you later to ask you about a specific book on your list, but for now, please don’t feel obligated to write blurbs or explanations. Just 5 titles is fine!

We’re interested in a number of picture-book trends: the growing diversity of creators and the stories they tell; the shortening of text and the interplay of art and words in contemporary picture books; the growth of picture-book nonfiction as a genre; and more. We’d be so grateful if you could take a moment to consider how you think picture books have grown, and the five titles that best reflect that growth. The result, we hope, will be a service to young readers and their caregivers, and a way to honor the creators who are pushing the art form forward.

You can fill out this Google form or, if you’d prefer, respond by email to dan.kois@slate.com. That’s also the email address if you have any questions about the project.

Please submit your five titles by May 15, 2025. And feel free to share this blog post with anyone else you think we should ask!

Today’s guest contributor is Dan Kois. Dan is a longtime writer at Slate magazine and the author of five books.

The post What do YOU think are the best picture books of the last 25 years? appeared first on ALSC Blog.

 Hello to members of ALSC! I’m a writer at Slate magazine. This summer, we’re putting together an ambitious package recognizing the best picture books of the past 25 years. We’re hoping to highlight and explore the transformation of the medium that’s taken place over the past quarter-century, and to provide new parents a guide to the marvelous picture books that have been published since they were kids. We’re asking illustrators, writers, editors, critics, and booksellers for their picks. And it’s important that we hear from children’s librarians, too! When my kids were little, it was their librarians who were instrumental in expanding my parental picture-book reading list beyond, you know, Margaret Wise Brown. So as we choose the best contemporary picture books, it’s only fitting we ask librarians for their input. What are we asking of you? If you work with picture books and have opinions about your favorite recent(ish)…
The post What do YOU think are the best picture books of the last 25 years? appeared first on ALSC Blog.  Read More

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