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
Willa and the Whale
Chad Morris and Shelly Brown
Ages: 9+
Published: 2020
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
ISBN: 978-1-1629727318
Keywords: grief, fantasy, family, mothers and daughters, death, marine biology
Willa, 12, devastated with grief after her marine biologist mother's death, unable to communicate with her father and his new family, discovers she can talk with a whale.