Best books of 1979

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 Books
Why the Tides Ebb and Flow written by Joan Chase Bowden, illustrated by Marc Brown (Houghton)
King Krakus and the Dragon written and illustrated by Janina Domanska (Greenwillow)
How Does it Feel to Be Old? written by Norma Farber, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (Dutton/Unicorn)
Ox-Cart Man written by Donald Hall, illustrated by Barbara Cooney (Viking)
Ben’s Trumpet written and illustrated by Rachel Isadora (Greenwillow)
Pinkerton, Behave! written and illustrated by Steven Kellogg (Dial)
Days with Frog and Toad written and illustrated by Arnold Lobel (Harper)
The Treasure written and illustrated by Uri Shulevitz (Farrar)
The Garden of Abdul Gasazi written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg (Houghton)
The Wild Washerwomen: A New Folk Tale written by John Yeoman, illustrated by Quentin Blake (Greenwillow)

Fiction
The Robbers by Nina Bawden (Lothrop)
Tulku by Peter Dickinson (Dutton/Unicorn)
The Night of the Comet: A Comedy of Courtship Featuring Bostock and Harris by Leon Garfield (Delacorte)
The Third Eye by Mollie Hunter (Harper)
Throwing Shadows by E. L. Konigsburg (Atheneum)
A Midsummer’s Night Death by K. M. Peyton (Collins)
What Happened in Hamelin by Gloria Skurzynski (Four Winds)
The Devil on the Road by Robert Westall (Greenwillow)
The Sound of the Dragon’s Feet by Alki Zei, translated by Edward Fenton (Dutton)

Nonfiction
Self-Portrait: Erik Blegvad written and illustrated by Erik Blegvad (Addison)
Stonewall written by Jean Fritz, illustrated by Stephen Gammell (Putnam)
Pride of Lions: The Story of the House of Atreus retold by Norma Johnston (Atheneum)
The Road from Home: The Story of an Armenian Girl by David Kherdian (Greenwillow)
America’s Endangered Birds: Programs and People Working to Save Them written by
Robert M. McClung, illustrated by George Founds (Morrow)
Building: The Fight Against Gravity written by Mario Salvadori, illustrated by Saralinda Hooker and Christopher Ragus (Atheneum/McElderry)
The Story of American Photography: An Illustrated History for Young People by Martin W. Sandler (Little)