100 Scope Notes Year In Review: The Best of the Best of the Best (Part 1)

Part 1: Picture Books (Fiction)

Well, it’s done. I picked over every single year end list I could get my hands on. From the big names (Horn Book, School Library Journal) to the names which carry lesser weight in the children’s lit world (Miami Herald anyone?), no list went un-poured over (see below). I noted which books appeared on these “best of” lists in painstaking detail. Tabulations were made. Was the process scientific? Nay. Could another librarian take a broad sampling of year-end lists and come up with different results? Yep. Is the resulting list still worth a look? I believe it is.

When the dust settled, there were some great books left out (“17 Things I’m Not Allowed to Do Anymore”, “Grumpy Bird”, “The Incredible Book Eating Boy”, to name a few). The goal of this exercise? To determine which books received the most love in 2007, and possibly start formulatin’ some Newbery, Caldecott, and Geisel predictions along the way. It’s the 100 Scope Notes Best of the Best of the Best. Today, Aught 7’s Most Loved Picture Books (Fiction).

Let me tell you, it was a very close race. First, we have the contenders:

“Pssst!” By Adam Rex.