Christina’s Favorite Children’s Books of 2024
Another year has come and gone, which means it’s time for my favorite tradition: the end-of-year round up. Every December, I reflect on the best books I read that year. I am not sure that my favorite books have any connecting thread aside from me loving them. In 2024, I loved picture books that had both art so beautiful I wanted to put it up in my home and a story that was fun to read aloud for my whole family. I loved chapter books told from the perspective of a character confronting the uncomfortable, in regards to both places and relationships. I also loved funny books. Without further ado, I present some of my favorite books of 2024.
When I was a kid, my dad sometimes took me to an indoor playground on the top floor of a movie theater that was decorated in the style of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. As a reader, this playground was a dream. The adjoining restaurant was modeled after In the Night Kitchen, another, much weirder Sendak title that I also loved.
As I flipped through X. Fang’s picture book Dim Sum Palace, I realized it was an homage to the latter Sendak title, which I loved so much. However, Fang’s title is incredible in its own right, both in the beautiful (and slightly strange) illustrations and the imaginative, midnight romp in the restaurant. Liddy, the round-cheeked protagonist, is brave and curious, even after she gets wrapped into a bao by chefs several times larger than her. This is a fun, silly read aloud perfect for bedtime or anytime. Dim Sum Palace will make readers laugh, and it may also make them hungry.
The Prickletrims Go Wild by Marie Dorleans is a beautiful story about the buttoned-up Prickletrim family learning to let loose. The Prickletrims are prim and proper. They have a lovely, well-curated garden where everything is just so. Their insistence on such a garden, however, leads to their exasperated gardener quitting in a huff. In his absence, their perfect yard becomes a bit, well, wild. As flowers bloom and color enters their lives and eventually their home, they realize they could stand to be a bit less straightlaced. They spend the whole summer smelling flowers, exploring, touching plants, and watching wildlife. The juxtaposition of the black and white line drawings of the family and their house with the full-color, full-page illustrations of flora and fauna is especially striking. The Prickletrims Go Wild is a delight to read and look at.
Other favorites from 2024, which I have written about in other reviews, include the uproariously funny The First Cat in Space and the Wrath of the Paperclip by Mac Barnett and Shawn Harris, and the illuminating historical fiction novel The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh. It was a good year of reading, and I’m looking forward to more good books in 2025. Happy reading!
