Best books of 1977

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
Who’s in Rabbit’s House? retold by Verna Aardema, illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon (Dial)
Anno’s Counting Book written and illustrated by Mitsumasa Anno (Crowell)
Come Away from the Water, Shirley written and illustrated by John Burningham (Crowell)
The Telephone by Kornei Chukovsky, adapted by William Jay Smith, illustrated by Blair Lent (Delacorte/Seymour Lawrence)
Garth Pig and the Icecream Lady written and illustrated by Mary Rayner (Atheneum)
Noah’s Ark illustrated by Peter Spier (Doubleday)
Caleb and Kate written and illustrated by William Steig (Farrar)
It Could Always Be Worse retold and illustrated by Margot Zemach (Farrar)

Stories
The Pinballs by Betsy Byars (Harper)
Julia and the Hand of God written by Eleanor Cameron, illustrated by Gail Owens (Dutton)
Ramona and Her Father written by Beverly Cleary, illustrated by Allan Tiegreen (Morrow)
Trial Valley by Vera and Bill Cleaver (Lippincott)
Prison Window, Jerusalem Blue by Bruce Clements (Farrar)
I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier (Pantheon)
Ordinary Jack by Helen Cresswell (Macmillan)
Hew Against the Grain by Betty Sue Cummings (Atheneum)
Annerton Pit by Peter Dickinson (Atlantic-Little)
Bilgewater by Jane Gardam (Greenwillow)
Alan and Naomi by Myron Levoy (Harper)
A Summer to Die by Lois Lowry (Houghton)
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, illustrated by Donna Diamond (Crowell)
Blood Feud by Rosemary Sutcliff (Dutton)
The Wind Eye by Robert Westall (Greenwillow)
Child of the Owl by Laurence Yep (Harper)

Architecture
Castle written and illustrated by David Macaulay (Houghton)

Autobiography
Mischling, Second Degree: My Childhood in Nazi Germany by Ilse Koehn (Greenwillow)

Folklore
Anpao: An American Indian Odyssey written by Jamake Highwater, illustrated by Fritz Scholder (Lippincott)

Nature
The View from the Oak: The Private Worlds of Other Creatures written by Judith and Herbert Kohl, illustrated by Roger Bayless (Sierra Club/Scribner)

Poetry
A Poison Tree and Other Poems illustrated by Mercer Mayer (Scribner)

Portfolios of Pictures
The Changing City and the Changing Countryside illustrated by Jörg Müller (Atheneum/Margaret K. McElderry)