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

Out of the Easy

by Ruta Sepetys

Ages: 14+

Published: 2013

Publisher: Philomel/Penguin

ISBN: 978-0-399-25692-9

Keywords: murder, New Orleans, prostitution

In 1950s New Orleans, seventeen-year-old Josie is desperate to leave her prostitute mother, get a college education, and make a life outside the French Quarter.