Best books of 1940

Chosen annually by our editors, Fanfare is The Horn Book Magazine’s selection of the best children’s and young adult books of the year.

Picture Story Books
They Were Strong and Good by Robert Lawson (Viking)
Animals Everywhere written and illustrated by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire (Doubleday)
The Great Geppy written and illustrated by William Pène du Bois (Viking)
The Story of Colette illustrated by Françoise (Scribner)
The Tale of the Whitefoot Mouse written and illustrated by Henry B. Kane (Knopf)
Presents for Lupe written and illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop (Macmillan)

Stories for Younger Children
Thee, Hannah! written and illustrated by Marguerite de Angeli (Doubleday)
The Sea Is All Around written and illustrated by Elizabeth Enright (Farrar)
Jock’s Castle written by Katharine Gibson, illustrated by Vera Bock (Longmans)
Maminka’s Children written and illustrated by Elizabeth Orton Jones (Macmillan)
A Cat of Paris written by Eleanor Hoffmann, illustrated by Zhenya Gay (Stokes)
Sinfi and the Little Gypsy Goat written by Chesley Kahmann, illustrated by F. Luis Mora (Random)

Folk, Fairy Tales and Myth
Animal Stories chosen, arranged and in some part rewritten by Walter de la Mare, illustrated with seventeenth century wood cuts (Scribner)
Where the Winds Never Blew and the Cocks Never Crew written by Padraic Colum, illustrated by Richard Bennett (Macmillan)
Heroes of the Kalevala, Finland’s Saga written by Babette Deutsch, illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg (Messner)
The Fatapoufs and Thinifers written by André Maurois, translated by Rosemary Benét, illustrated by Jean Bruller (Holt)
The Little Black Hen written by Eileen O’Faolain, illustrated by Aldren A. Watson (Random)
Peter and the Wolf written by Serge Prokofieff, illustrated by Warren Chappell

Stories
Happy Times in Czechoslovakia written by Libuska Bartusek, illustrated by Yarka Burés (Knopf)
The Fair American written by Elizabeth Coatsworth, illustrated by Helen Sewell (Macmillan)
Last Clash of Claymores written by Maribelle Cormack and William P. Alexander, illustrated by Norman Price (Appleton-Century)
A Book for Jennifer, Astory of London children in the eighteenth century and of Mr. Newbery’s Juvenile Library written by Alice Dalgliesh, illustrated by Katherine Milhous (Scribner)
Blue Willow written by Doris Gates, illustrated by Paul Lantz (Viking)
Smoky House written by Elizabeth Goudge, illustrated by Richard Floethe (Coward)
Michel’s Island written by Mabel Leigh Hunt, illustrated by Kate Seredy (Stokes)
Lassie Come-Home written by Eric Knight, illustrated by Marguerite Kirmse (Winston)
Call of the Mountain written by Cornelia Meigs, illustrated by James Daugherty (Little)
The Year of Jubilo written by Ruth Sawyer, illustrated by Edward Shenton (Viking)
The White Isle written by Caroline Dale Snedeker, illustrated by Fritz Kredel (Doubleday)
Tumbledown Dick: All People and No Plot written by Howard Spring, illustrated by Steven Spurrier (Viking)
The Long Winter written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, illustrated by Helen Sewell and Mildred Boyle (Harper)

Animal Life
Children of the Sea written and illustrated by Wilfrid S. Bronson (Harcourt)
Animals Nobody Knows written and illustrated by Ivan T. Sanderson (Viking)

Biography, History, Books
Introducing Charles Dickens written by May Lamberton Becker, illustrated by Oscar Ogg (Dodd)
Spice on the Wind written by Irmengarde Eberle, illustrated by Richard Jones (Holiday)
Nansen written by Anna Gertrude Hall, illustrated by Boris Artzybasheff (Viking)
Wings for Words written by Douglas C. McMurtrie, illustrated by Edward A. Wilson (Rand)
The Little History of the United States by Mable Pyne (Houghton)
Reading with Children by Anne Thaxter Eaton (Viking)