Best books of 1994

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
Swamp Angel written by Anne Isaacs, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky (Dutton)
V for Vanishing: An Alphabet of Endangered Animals written and illustrated by Patricia Mullins (HarperCollins)
To Baby with Love written and illustrated by Jan Ormerod (Lothrop)
Pink and Say written and illustrated by Patricia Polacco (Philomel)
Good Night, Gorilla written and illustrated by Peggy Rathmann (Putnam)
The Christmas Alphabet illustrated by Robert Sabuda (Orchard)
Hi written by Ann Herbert Scott, illustrated by Glo Coalson (Philomel)
A Hat for Minerva Louise written and illustrated by Janet Morgan Stoeke (Dutton)

Fiction
Am I Blue?: Coming Out from the Silence edited by Marion Dane Bauer (HarperCollins)
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman (Clarion)
Flour Babies by Anne Fine (Little)
Jericho by Janet Hickman (Greenwillow)
Deliver Us from Evie by M. E. Kerr (HarperCollins)
A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories by Robin McKinley (Greenwillow)
Letters from the Inside by John Marsden (Houghton)
I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This by Jacqueline Woodson (Delacorte)

Folklore
John Henry retold by Julius Lester, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney (Dial)

Poetry
Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing Up Latino in the United Stated edited by Lori M. Carlson (Holt)
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems written by Langston Hughes, illustrated by Brian Pinkney (Knopf)
A Tree Place and Other Poems written by Constance Levy, illustrated by Robert Sabuda (McElderry)

Nonfiction
The Days before Now written by Margaret Wise Brown, edited by Joan W. Blos, illustrated by Thomas B. Allen (Simon)
Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade against Child Labor written by Russell Freedman (Clarion)
It’s Perfectly Normal: A Book about Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health written by Robie H. Harris, illustrated by Michael Emberley (Candlewick)
Unconditional Surrender: U.S. Grant and the Civil War by Albert Marrin (Atheneum)
I Am an American: A True Story of Japanese Internment by Jerry Stanley (Crown)

Of Interest to Adults
75 Years of Children’s Book Week Posters by Leonard S. Marcus (Knopf)
The Annotated Charlotte’s Web by Peter F. Neumeyer (HarperCollins)