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
Oldest Student, The: How Mary Walker Learned to Read
Rita Lorraine Hubbard
Illustrator: Oge Mora
Ages: 6+
Published: 2020
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random House
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6828-7
Keywords: African Americans, Biography, Literacy, Enslavement
Enslaved but emancipated at 15, Walker fulfilled her life's dream to achieve literacy at age 114, receiving community recognition. Evocative expressive collage illustrations. Author's note. End papers contain photographs.