ALA Notable Children's Books Books

Since 1940 the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, has published an annual list of Notable Children's Books. A committee of children's librarians applies a deliberately plain standard — worthy of note or notice, important, distinguished, outstanding — to books for readers from birth through age 14. Since the 1970s the selections have been sorted into four groups: Younger Readers, Middle Readers, Older Readers, and All Ages.

This is a stocking list rather than a prize. It runs to well over a hundred annotated titles most years, and the current year's Newbery, Caldecott, Belpré, Sibert, Geisel, and Batchelder winners and honor books are added to it automatically. That makes it the practical companion to the medals — the place to look when the question is what else came out this year worth putting on a classroom or library shelf, already sorted by the age band it was chosen for.

Information from the Association for Library Service to Children.