2007 Notable Books for Children

These books were chosen by a committee of librarians, educators, and other professionals for the Association for Library Service to Children.

Younger Readers

• Once upon a Banana, by Jennifer Armstrong; illustrated by David Small (Simon & Schuster and Paula Wiseman)
• My Cat, the Silliest Cat in the World, by Gilles Bachelet (Abrams)
• Keeper of Soles, by Teresa Bateman; illustrated by Yayo (Holiday House)
• Move Over, Rover!, by Karen Beaumont; illustrated by Jane Dyer (Harcourt)
• Cork & Fuzz: Short and Tall, by Dori Chaconas; illustrated by Lisa McCue (Viking)
• Best Best Friends, by Margaret Chodos-Irvine (Harcourt)
• Below, by Nina Crews (Holt)
• I Lost My Tooth in Africa, by Penda Diakité; illustrated by Baba Wagué Diakité (Scholastic)
• Mercy Watson Goes for a Ride, by Kate DiCamillo; illustrated by Chris Van Dusen (Candlewick)
• Wolves, by Emily Gravett (Simon & Schuster)
• The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon, by Mini Grey (Knopf)
• Lilly's Big Day, by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow)
• Duck & Goose, by Tad Hills (Random and Schwartz & Wade)
• Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building, by Deborah Hopkinson; illustrated by James E. Ransome (Random/Schwartz & Wade.)
• Houndsley and Catina, by James Howe; illustrated by Marie-Louise Gay (Candlewick)
• Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways, by Laura McGee Kvasnosky (Candlewick)
• Uncle Peter's Amazing Chinese Wedding, by Lenore Look; illustrated by Yumi Heo (Simon & Schuster and Anne Schwartz)
• Tunjur! Tunjur! Tunjur! A Palestinian Folktale, by Margaret Read MacDonald; illustrated by Alik Arzoumanian (Marshall Cavendish)
• Once I Ate a Pie, by Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest; illustrated by Katy Schneider (HarperCollins and Joanna Cotler)
• Adèle & Simon, by Barbara McClintock (Farrar and Frances Foster)
• Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet, by David McLimans (Walker)
• Los Gatos Black on Halloween, by Marisa Montes; illustrated by Yuyi Morales (Holt)
• Hippo! No, Rhino!, by Jeff Newman (Brown Little)
• The Little Red Hen, by Jerry Pinkney (Dial)
• Not a Box, by Antoinette Portis (HarperCollins)
• Black? White! Day? Night! A Book of Opposites, by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (Roaring Brook and Neal Porter)
• Good Boy, Fergus!, by David Shannon (Scholastic and Blue Sky)
• Thelonius Monster's Sky-High Fly Pie, by Judy Sierra; illustrated by Edward Koren (Knopf)
• Scaredy Squirrel, by Mélanie Watt (Kids Can)
• Mammoths on the Move, by Lisa Wheeler; illustrated by Kurt Cyrus (Harcourt)
• Dizzy, by Jonah Winter; illustrated by Sean Qualls (Scholastic and Arthur A. Levine)

Middle Readers

• Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peas, by Cheryl Bardoe; illustrated by Jos. A. Smith (Abrams)
• Ivy and Bean, by Annie Barrows; illustrated by Sophie Blackall (Chronicle)
• Hugging the Rock, by Susan Taylor Brown (Tricycle)
• Su Dongpo: Chinese Genius, by Demi (Lee & Low)
• The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate DiCamillo; illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline (Candlewick)
• The Adventures of Polo, by Régis Faller (Roaring Brook/Neal Porter)
• All in Just One Cookie, by Susan E. Goodman; illustrated by Timothy Bush (Greenwillow)
• Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship, by Hatkoff, Isabella and others; illustrated by Peter Greste (Scholastic)
• Lugalbanda: The Boy Who Got Caught Up in a War, by Kathy Henderson; illustrated by Jane Ray (Candlewick)
• Toys Go Out: Being the Adventures of a Knowledgeable Stingray, a Toughy Little Buffalo, and Someone Called Plastic, by Emily Jenkins; illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky (Random/Schwartz & Wade)
• Families, by Susan Kuklin (Hyperion)
• The Story of Salt, by Mark Kurlansky; illustrated by S.D. Schindler (Putnam)
• The Year of the Dog, by Lin Grace (Brown Little)
• Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything, by Lenore Look; illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum)
• Rules, by Cynthia Lord (Scholastic)
• Oh, Rats! The Story of Rats and People, by Albert Marrin; illustrated by C.B. Mordan (Dutton)
• Aliens Are Coming! The True Account of the 1938 War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast, by Meghan McCarthy (Knopf)
• Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New Guinea, by Sy Montgomery; photos by Nic Bishop (Houghton)
• Jazz, by Walter Dean Myers; illustrated by Christopher Myers (Holiday)
• The Higher Power of Lucky, by Susan Patron; illustrated by Matt Phelan (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum)
• Clementine, by Sara Pennypacker; illustrated by Marla Frazee (Hyperion)
• Here's Looking at Me: How Artists See Themselves, by Bob Raczka (Lerner/Millbrook)
• The Cat with the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in Terezin, by Susan Goldman Rubin and Ela Weissberger (Holiday)
• She's All That! Poems about Girls, by Belinda Hollyer; illustrated by Susan Hellard (Kingfisher)
• Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow, by Joyce Sidman; illustrated by Beth Krommes (Houghton)
• To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel, by Siena Cherson Siegel; illustrated by Mark Siegel (Simon & Schuster/Richard Jackson)
• Younguncle Comes to Town, by Vandana Singh; illustrated by B.M. Kamath (Viking)
• Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon, by Catherine Thimmesh (Houghton)
• Crossing Bok Chitto: A Choctaw Tale of Friendship and Freedom, by Tim Tingle; illustrated by Jeanne Rorex Bridges (Cinco Puntos)
• Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom, by Carole Boston Weatherford; illustrated by Kadir Nelson (Hyperion/Jump at the Sun)

Older Readers

• Crispin: At the Edge of the World, by Avi (Hyperion)
• Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement, by Ann Bausum (National Geographic)
• The Killer’s Tears, by Anne-Laure Bondoux; translated by Y. Maudet (Delacorte)
• Ask Me No Questions, by Marina Budhos (Simon & Schuster/Ginee Seo)
• The Runaway Princess, by Kate Coombs (Farrar)
• Framed, by Frank Cottrell Boyce (HarperCollins)
• The Last Dragon, by Silvana DeMari; translated by Shaun Whiteside (Hyperion/Miramax)
• Odd Man Out, by Sarah Ellis (Groundwood)
• Escape! The Story of the Great Houdini, by Sid Fleischman (Greenwillow)
• Jane Addams: Champion of Democracy, by Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin (Clarion)
• The Adventures of Marco Polo, by Russell Freedman; illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine)
• Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, by Russell Freedman (Holiday)
• Penny from Heaven, by Jennifer L. Holm (Random)
• Up Before Daybreak: Cotton and People in America, by Deborah Hopkinson (Scholastic Nonfiction)
• Isaac Newton, by Kathleen Krull; illustrated by Boris Kulikov (Viking)
• Sigmund Freud, by Kathleen Krull; illustrated by Boris Kulikov (Viking)
• Hattie Big Sky, by Kirby Larson (Delacorte)
• Gossamer, by Lois Lowry (Houghton/Walter Lorraine)
• Heat, by Mike Lupica (Philomel)
• The Pull of the Ocean, by Jean-Claude Mourlevat; translated by Y. Maudet (Delacorte)
• The Legend of Bass Reeves: Being the True and Fictional Account of the Most Famous Marshal in the West, by Gary Paulsen (Random/Wendy Lamb)
• All of the Above: A Novel by Shelly Pearsall; illustrated by Javaka Steptoe (Brown Little)
• Wintersmith, by Terry Pratchett (HarperTempest)
• Larklight: A Rousing Tale of Dauntless Pluck in the Farthest Reaches of Space, by Philip Reeve; illustrated by David Wyatt (Bloomsbury)
• Yellow Star, by Jennifer Roy (Marshall Cavendish)
• Andy Warhol: Pop Art Painter, by Susan Goldman Rubin (Abrams)
• House of the Red Fish, by Graham Salisbury (Random/Wendy Lamb)
• Whatcha Mean, What's a Zine? The Art of Making Zines and Mini-Comics, by Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson (Houghton/Graphia)
• Remember Little Bighorn: Indians, Soldiers, and Scouts Tell Their Stories, by Paul Robert Walker (National Geographic)
• Counting on Grace, by Elizabeth Winthrop (Random/Wendy Lamb)

All Ages

• Tales Our Abuelitas Told: A Hispanic Folktale Collection, by F. Isabel Campoy and Alma Flor Ada; illustrated by Felipe Dávalos and others (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum)
• It's Not the Stork!: A Book about Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families, and Friends, by Robie H. Harris; illustrated by Michael Emberley (Candlewick)
• Porch Lies: Tales of Slicksters, Tricksters, and Other Wily Characters, by Patricia C. McKissack; illustrated by André Carrilho (Random/Schwartz & Wade)
• Solomon and the Ant and Other Jewish Folktales, by Sheldon Oberman (Boyds Mills)
• Flotsam, by David Wiesner (Clarion)