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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The Lightning Dreamer

by Margarita Engle

Ages: 12+

Published: 2013

Publisher: Harcourt/HMH

ISBN: 978-0-547-80743-0

Keywords: Slavery, Cuba

A fictionalized history of Cuba's great abolitionist and feminist poet, Gomez de Avellaneda, a.k.a. Tula, told in simple, powerful verse.