Best books of 1996

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
Goose written and illustrated by Molly Bang (Blue Sky/Scholastic)
Clown illustrated by Quentin Blake (Holt)
Night Driving written by Jon Coy, illustrated by Peter McCarty (Holt)
Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow/Morrow)
Hush!: A Thai Lullaby written by Minfong Ho, illustrated by Holly Meade (Kroupa/Orchard)
Grandmother Bryant’s Pocket written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, illustrated by Petra Mathers (Houghton)
Martha Blah Blah written and illustrated by Susan Meddaugh (Lorraine/Houghton)
The Paperboy written and illustrated by Dav Pilkey (Jackson/Orchard)

Fiction
My Brother, Ant written by Betsy Byars, illustrated by Marc Simont (Viking/Penguin)
The Cuckoo’s Child by Suzanne Freeman (Greenwillow/Morrow)
Bad Girls by Cynthia Voigt (Scholastic)
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (Knopf/Random)
A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer (Jackson/Orchard)
Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida by Victor Martinez (Cotler/HarperCollins)
Frindle written by Andrew Clements, illustrated by Brian Selznick (Simon)
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (Greenwillow/Morrow)

Folklore
The Green Frogs retold and illustrated by Yumi Heo (Houghton)
Coyote and the Fire Stick retold by Barbara Diamond Goldin, illustrated by Will Hillenbrand (Gulliver/Harcourt)
Nursery Tales around the World retold by Judy Sierra, illustrated by Stefano Vitale (Clarion/Houghton)

Poetry
I Feel a Little Jumpy around You: A Book of Her Poems and His Poems Collected in Pairs selected by Naomi Shihab Nye and Paul B. Janeczko (Simon)

Nonfiction
Full Steam Ahead: The Race to Build a Transcontinental Railroad by Rhoda Blumberg (National Geographic)
On the Bus with Joanna Cole: A Creative Autobiography by Joanna Cole with Wendy Saul (Heinemann)
The Life and Death of Crazy Horse written by Russell Freedman, illustrated by Amos Bad Heart Bull (Holiday)