When the legendary children’s book editor Ursula Nordstrom, who worked with luminaries like Maurice Sendak and E.B. White, was challenged about her qualifications to publish children’s books, she replied, “Well, I am a former child, and I haven’t forgotten a thing.” I once gave more or less the same answer (less imposingly, more abashedly) to a neighbor who asked me how I dared to write books for children, and I’ve come to believe that the artists who create work for young people are all particularly qualified to do that work not because they have taught kids, raised kids, or studied kids, but because they were kids, and they remember the emotional experience of childhood with astonishing clarity. In a successful book for children, no matter what outlandish stuff might be happening on the page, young readers will see their real emotions faithfully represented there—and older readers will be reminded of what it felt like to be a child who was lonely, anxious, playful, ambitious, left out, angry, open-hearted, and loved.
Here are ten excellent new books that reflect the ups and downs of young readers’ emotional lives, from toddlerhood to the teenage years.
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Dan Yaccarino, I Am Murphy and I Am Waiting
