Today The Atlantic launches “65 Essential Children’s Books,” a new editorial project that brings together important illustrated stories for young readers, beginning with The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf, published in 1936, all the way through Kyle Lukoff’s I’m Sorry You Got Mad, released last year. This project follows the March 2025 release of “The Best American Poetry of the 21st Century (So Far)” and 2024 publication of “The Great American Novels.”
In an introduction to “65 Essential Children’s Books,” the project’s editors write that “a picture book is a deceptively complex object: Ideally, it should be mind-expanding, psychologically astute, vividly illustrated, and—that most elusive criterion—fun. It must entertain the child without boring the grown-up to tears. And it should teach children to match sounds to meaning, pictures to objects, cause to effect, without feeling like homework. Finding picture books is easy—the market is glutted with them. The hard part is picking out just the right ones. What follows is an effort to bring clarity to the earliest years of literacy—and to help foster a child’s lifelong relationship with books. We hope this selection will assist harried caregivers in sorting the wheat from the chaff, while also giving these formative works the respect and scrutiny they deserve.”
To create the list, The Atlantic’s editors consulted authors, librarians, and other experts, and also debated works among themselves—stress-testing both classics and newer books to come up with a final list of 65 titles. “Because children’s books vary so much according to age,” the editors write, “we decided to limit our scope to titles that lead up to the transition from listening to an adult’s narration to reading independently: illustrated stories without long chapters, meant to be shared.”
Over the course of the project, certain trends emerged. The editors write: “1955—peak Baby Boom—was an auspicious year for the genre (when Eloise, Miffy, and the crayon-wielding Harold were created). The 1960s and ’70s brought bold colors and loopier styles to the fore. The 21st century delivered a wider array of stories—migrant journeys, portraits of grief, African and East Asian folktales. No single trait unifies the works below, but each represents a feat of artistry, voice, or complexity that we found exceptional. They are the kinds of books that will be cherished well into the future, worn from use and perhaps replaced more than once. Because of this, they felt essential.”
“65 Essential Children’s Books” is part of The Atlantic’s robust and expanded Books section, devoted to essays, criticism, reporting, original fiction, poetry, and book recommendations, as well as The Atlantic’s weekly Books Briefing newsletter.
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