Tonight I’m going to post my third and final batch of 2022 Sonderbooks Stand-outs — with Children’s Fiction and Nonfiction and Picture Books.
Sonderbooks Stand-outs are my personal favorite books from those I read this year. I’m not judging by literary merit, but simply by fondness. How much did these books warm my heart?
The ranking is very subjective, and I make multiple categories when it’s hard to decide. I split Children’s Fiction into Speculative Fiction and everything else, and I split Picture Books into Silly Fun and everything else. It seems like an awful lot of books, but I read even more.
All of these books are highly recommended and much loved:
Children’s Speculative Fiction
- Little Monarchs, by Jonathan Case
- The Ogress and the Orphans, by Kelly Barnhill
- Garlic and the Vampire, by Bree Paulsen
- The Last Mapmaker, by Christina Soontornvat
- Amari and the Night Brothers, by B. B. Alston
More Children’s Fiction
- The Secret Battle of Evan Pao, by Wendy Wan-Long Shang
- Merci Suárez Plays It Cool, by Meg Medina
- The Boys in the Back Row, by Mike Jung
- Those Kids from Fawn Creek, by Erin Entrada Kelly
- Different Kinds of Fruit, by Kyle Lukoff
- Answers in the Pages, by David Levithan
- Attack of the Black Rectangles, by Amy Sarig King
- Stuntboy #1: In the Meantime, by Jason Reynolds and Raúl the Third
- Premeditated Myrtle, by Elizabeth C. Bunce
Children’s Nonfiction
- Marshmallow Clouds, by Ted Kooser and Connie Wanek, illustrated by Richard Jones
- Before Music, by Annette Bay Pimentel, illustrated by Madison Safer
- Bake Infinite Pie with X + Y, by Eugenia Cheng, illustrated by Amber Ren
- Washed Ashore, by Kelly Crull
- The Tide Pool Waits, by Candace Fleming, pictures by Amy Hevron
- Molly and the Mathematical Mysteries, by Eugenia Cheng, illustrated by Aleksandra Artymowska
- Galloping Gertie, by Amanda Abler, illustrated by Levi Hastings
- Sylvie, by Sylvie Kantorovitz
- Make Way for Animals!, by Meeg Pincus, illustrated by Bao Luu
- Blips on a Screen, by Kate Hannigan, illustrated by Zachariah OHora
Silly Fun Picture Books
- Monsters in the Fog, by Ali Bahrampour
- A Spoonful of Frogs, by Vera Brosgol
- This Book Is Not For You!, by Shannon Hale, illustrated by Tracy Subisak
- How to Be Cooler Than Cool, by Sean Taylor, illustrated by Jean Jullien
- The Three Billy Goats Gruff, by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen
- Zero Zebras, by Bruce Goldstone, illustrated by Julien Chang
- The Legend of Iron Purl, by Tao Nyeu
- How to Be on the Moon, by Viviane Schwarz
- Too Many Pigs and One Big Bad Wolf, by Davide Cali, illustrated by Marianna Balducci
- Here We Come!, by Janna Matthies, illustrated by Christine Davenier
More Picture Books
- Berry Song, by Michaela Goade
- Like, by Annie Barrows, illustrated by Leo Espinosa
- A Seed Grows, by Antoinette Portis
- I’ll Go and Come Back, by Rajani LaRocca, illustrated by Sara Palacios
- Gibberish, by Young Vo
I’ll post all the missing reviews as soon as I can. I hope you get a chance to try some of these books!
And here’s my permanent webpage for all my 2022 Sonderbooks Stand-outs!
Happy Reading!