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 How & the Why

by Cynthia Hand

Ages: 14+

Published: 2020

Publisher: HarperTeen/HarperCollins

ISBN: 978-0-06-269316-7

Keywords: Mothers and Daughters, Adoption, Family Life

In alternating letters and first-person narration, an adopted 18-year-old and her birth mother relate the experiences resulting in their separation that might reunite them today.