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/.

How to Perform a Search and Save a List

No Crystal Stair

by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

Illustrator: R. Gregory Christie

Ages: 12+

Published: 2012

Publisher: Carolrhoda/Lerner

ISBN: 978-0-7613-6169-5

Keywords: Civil Rights

The life of the author's great-uncle, a bookseller in Harlem whose store became a cultural center for iconic figures such as Langston Hughes and Malcolm X, is chronicled with archival photographs and pen and ink illustrations.