Welcome to the Bank Street Children's Book Committee's (CBC) Searchable Best Books List, a tool designed to help educators, families, librarians, and others access developmentally appropriate and engaging books for young readers (ages birth - 18).

Our online Searchable Best Books List draws from the committee's annual Best Children's Books of the Year-beginning with the list of books published in 2000-with each featuring more than 600 high-quality titles for young readers.

To share feedback about the tool, please feel free to email bookcom@bankstreet.edu. To learn more about the CBC, visit https://www.bankstreet.edu/cbc/.

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Curse of a Winter Moon
by Mary Casanova
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
Marius protects his small brother against the sixteenth-century villagers who believe he is a werewolf.

Dear Ellen Bee
by Mary E. Lyons
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
In Civil War Richmond, a former slave and her former owner join forces to spy on the Confederacy. Based on a true incident.

Doll Baby
by Eve Bunting
Illustrator: Catherine Stock
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
Being a teen parent creates hardships for both a girl and her family. Simply and eloquently told and illustrated.

Dovey Coe
by Frances O'Roark Dowell
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
In an affectionate North Carolina family, a younger sister is accused of the murder of her sister's suitor.

Dream Soul
by Laurence Yep
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
When charming new neighbors move in, Joan finds herself critical of the frugality and discipline of her own Chinese family.

Escape from Heart
by Lynette Stark
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
A Mennonite girl reflects on the value of her way of life when she must leave the colony to escape a vicious leader.

Escape to the Forest
by Ruth Yaffe Radin
Illustrator: Janet Hamlin
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
A Polish family help over a thousand Jews survive the Holocaust.

Esperanza Rising
by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
When her father's death ends her privileged childhood in Mexico, Esperanza must adjust to life in a California migrant camp.

Everything I Know about Pirates
written and ill. by Tom Lichtenheld
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
Pirates and their rogue life, a humorous encyclopedic account. Hilarious illustrations.

Fever, 1793
by Laurie Halse Anderson
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
Graphic, moving description of the Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia, as narrated by a fourteen-year-old girl.

Fiddle Fever
by Sharon Arms Doucet
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
In Louisiana in 1914, a fourteen-year-old Cajun makes a fiddle from a cigar box and teaches himself to play.

Friends and Enemies
by Louann Gaeddert
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
William is torn between the pacifism of his Mennonite friends and the patriotic fervor engendered by World War II in rural Kansas.

Ghost Town
by Joan Lowery Nixon
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
Evocative ghost stories about real abandoned towns in the American West.

Give a Boy a Gun
by Todd Strasser
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
Realistic depiction of a fictional high school shooting. Footnotes of horrific facts on youthful gun use.

Gold Dust
by Chris Lynch
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
Twelve-year-old Richard's world is baseball until a new friend turns this world upside down. An honest, funny, compassionate child's eye look at racism.

Guy Time
by Sarah Weeks
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
Guy's life is not going right: his mother is dating and a girl has asked him to the movies.

Hannah's Journal
written and ill. by Marissa Moss
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
A ten-year-old's commentary on her family's travels from Lithuania to New York in 1901.

Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen
retold by Ken Setterington
Illustrator: Nelly and Ernst Hofer
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
Fascinating cut-paper illustrations accompany a lively retelling of the classic story of the magician and the evil queen.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
by J.K Rowling
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000


Homeless Bird
by Gloria Whelan
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
A young Hindu, widowed and abandoned at age thirteen, refuses to submit to her fate, instead creating a new life for herself.

If Ever I Return Again
by Corinne Demas
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
In letter form, the twelve-year-old daughter of a whaling ship captain relates the daily pleasures and pains of her world.

Island of the Aunts
by Eva Ibbotson
Illustrator: Kevin Hawkes
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
Two kidnapped children are put to work on an isolated island populated by mystical creatures. Humorous.

I Was a Rat!
by Philip Pullman
Illustrator: Kevin Hawkes
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
Who will believe Roger's tale of his rodent past? An exciting comical retelling of the Cinderella story.

Joey Pigza Loses Control
by Jack Gantos
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
His attention deficit disorder is managed by medication, but Joey faces new challenges when he goes to stay with his estranged, hard-drinking father.

Little Women Next Door
by Sheila Solomon Klass
Ages: 9+
Published: 2000
Depicts the Alcott family life during 1843 when the father and others tried to establish a utopian community.