Over the past year, Publishers Weekly reviewed more than 2,000 children's and YA books that were published in 2016. Of those reviews, these 10 saw the most attention on our site.
10. 
The Best Man
Markedly more contemporary than many of Peck’s previous novels, this drolly narrated coming-of-age story traces milestones in Archer Magill’s life from first to sixth grade while deftly addressing a variety of social issues. The first scene—depicting a “train wreck” of a wedding in which six-year-old Archer performs ring bearer duties in a pair of muddy, too-tight shorts that have split open in the back—sets the stage for other hilarious mishaps. Whenever Archer flounders, there are people (usually the influential men he “wanted to be”) ready to help: his father, as good at fixing problems as he is at restoring vintage cars; his stylish Uncle Paul; and his dignified grandfather Magill. In fifth grade, Archer finds he can depend on someone new: his student-teacher Mr. McLeod, who accidentally causes a lockdown when he shows up at school in his National Guard uniform. Archer gains some wisdom on his own (after befriending a visiting student from England, he concludes: “We thought he was weird. He thought we were weird. It was great. It was what multiculturalism ought to be”), but the most profound lessons about prejudice, conflict resolution, and gay rights are taught by his mentors, all-too-human heroes, whom readers will come to admire as much as Archer does. It’s an indelible portrait of what it looks like to grow up in an age of viral videos and media frenzies, undergirded by the same powerful sense of family that characterizes so much of Peck’s work. Ages 9–12.
9. Raymie Nightingale
Set in 1975, this tender novel shows how even when life seems out of one’s control—people die, parents disappoint—persistence and belief pay off. The story is told from the perspective of Raymie Clarke, whose father has just run off with a dental hygienist. Raymie, however, has a plan to bring him back: she will win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest, get her picture in the paper, and her father will come running home. The plan inspires her to take a baton-twirling class, where she meets Beverly Tapinski—a girl with a chip on her shoulder, who vows to sabotage the contest—and ingenuous Louisiana Elefante, an orphan who claims to be the daughter of the famous Flying Elefantes. With extraordinary skill, two-time Newbery Medalist DiCamillo traces the girls’ growing trust in each other while using understated confessionals and subtly expressed yearnings to show how tragedies have affected each of them. The book culminates with a daring cat-rescue mission: fraught with adventure, danger, and a miracle or two, the escapade reveals how love and compassion can overcome even the highest hurdles. Ages 10–up.
8. What Do You Do with a Problem?
Yamada and Besom follow What Do You Do with an Idea? with the story of a boy plagued by a problem, which Besom imagines as a violet cloud hanging over the boy’s head: “I didn’t want it. I didn’t ask for it. I really didn’t like having a problem, but it was there.” The boy wanders through a medievalesque town, accompanied by sleek, silvery flying fish that dart about like swallows. Soon the cloud grows into a storm: “The more I avoided my problem, the more I saw it everywhere.” At last the boy has an epiphany: armed with goggles, his hair thrown back by the force of the storm’s energy, he reaches into the heart of the cloud and finds light: “I discovered it had something beautiful inside. My problem held an opportunity!” Though some younger readers may find the story overly vague—it’s easy to imagine questions like “What is his problem?” and “What is he talking about?” popping up—Yamada’s inspirational prose and the romance of Besom’s spreads make an impact. Ages 5–8.
7. The Wild Robot
Brown’s middle-grade debut, an uplifting story about an unexpected visitor whose arrival disrupts the animal inhabitants of a rocky island, has a contemporary twist: the main character is a robot. A hurricane deposits Roz (short for ROZZUM unit 7134) on the island, where she is accidentally activated by a group of sea otters, who are terrified by the shiny monster awakening before their eyes. At first, Roz struggles to survive in an environment where she is treated as a frightening intruder, but after she adopts an abandoned gosling, she slowly becomes part of the island community, learning animal language and taking on motherhood and a leadership role. Brown (Mr. Tiger Goes Wild) convincingly builds a growing sense of cooperation among the animals and Roz as she blossoms in the wild. The allegory of otherness is clear but never heavy-handed, and Roz has just enough human attributes to make her sympathetic while retaining her robot characteristics. Brown wisely eschews a happy ending in favor of an open-ended one that supports the tone of a story that’s simultaneously unsentimental and saturated with feeling. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 8–12.
6. Ghosts
Telgemeier’s stirring graphic novel opens on moving day, as Cat’s family travels from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna, a foggy village up the coast; Cat’s younger sister, Maya, has cystic fibrosis and needs the sea air. While Cat is the worrier in the family, chronically ill Maya is an irrepressible optimist, her zest captured in the lyrics of her favorite song: “Let it out, let it out.... Can’t hold it in, gotta shout.” The village is obsessed with ghosts; their neighbor gives ghost tours, and there’s an annual Día de los Muertos celebration. What’s more, the ghosts are real. Telgemeier’s floaty, sea green, protoplasmic beings are just as appealing as her human characters. They worry, grieve, and make jokes, and it’s in learning to interact with them that Cat and Maya start to face the possibility that Maya might die. The complex relationship between the sisters is richly drawn—each feels almost unbearable compassion for the other’s weakness. “José,” Maya tells a child ghost, “if I die, Cat will be all alone. She’s terrible at making friends.” In her treatment of illness and death, Telgemeier (Sisters) nudges readers toward the edge of their comfort zone, but she never leaves them alone there. The story is consistently engaging, the plot is tightly built, and—as always—Telgemeier excels at capturing facial expressions, as when Maya’s oxygen tube shocks Cat’s new friends, or when Cat’s cool façade melts into ecstasy as she tastes her neighbors’ Mexican cooking. Death means sadness and loss, Cat and Maya learn, but it doesn’t mean the end of love. Ages 8–12.
5. Jacky Ha-Ha
Seventh grader Jacky Hart has been the class clown ever since classmates laughed at her stutter back in elementary school. "What's so wrong with wanting to be liked?" she wonders. Now "Jacky Ha-Ha" can't break out of her routine, even though her rudeness and pranks earn her numerous detentions. With her mother serving in Operation Desert Shield (the story is set on the Jersey Shore in 1990) and her father mysteriously absent most nights, Jacky is left without much guidance. Could a dynamic new English teacher help redirect Jacky's need to perform? The story is stuffed with page-turning pranks and social and family drama (Jacky is one of six sisters), and the swoopy b&w cartoons from Kerascoët, a pseudonym for French artists Marie Pommepuy and Sébastian Cosset, only add to Jacky's untamed energy. Framed as a successful comedy writer looking back on her wild 12th year, the novel is sure to amuse and encourage readers who don't have it all figured out just yet. Ages 8–12.
4. A Court of Mist and Fury
Maas broadens the world she created in her bestselling A Court of Thorns and Roses with a new enemy that threatens both the seven Fae Courts and the mortal world her heroine left behind. After having escaped the sadistic Amarantha, Feyre’s return to the Spring Court isn’t the happily-ever-after she imagined. Feyre no longer knows who she is or where she belongs, and she is grappling with her body’s strange new powers after the seven High Lords resurrected her as a Fae. She and her lover, Tamlin, are wracked with nightmares from their time “Under the Mountain,” and Tamlin’s concern for Feyre’s safety has become stifling. Worse, she’s still beholden to the Night Court, and Rhysand, its High Lord, calls in their bargain at the most inconvenient time. Fans may be frustrated by Feyre’s shifting romantic allegiances, but Maas lets the relationship dynamics change organically, and her talent for creating chemistry between her characters (including some fiery sexual encounters) is as strong as ever. Maas gives Feyre the space to regain her agency and prove herself the equal of any High Lord, resulting in an immersive, satisfying read. Ages 14–up.
3. You Know Me Well
Just because you live near San Francisco and there are other gay kids at school doesn’t mean that life is simple; as LaCour (Everything Leads to You) and Levithan (Two Boys Kissing) know, teenage life is never simple. It’s the start of Pride Week, and Katie feels like she has grown apart from her friends, and that meeting the girl she’s had a crush on forever is more than she can handle. Mark is at a gay bar competing in an underwear contest; he wins, but the victory emboldens Ryan, the friend Mark wishes were more, to dance with an attractive guy. When Katie bumps into Mark, they become a team as Mark imagines life without Ryan, Katie imagines it with Violet, and the future looms. There are a lot of emotional switchbacks packed into a single week, but the authors, writing in alternating chapters, incisively explore the excitement and costs of change, and the importance of friends in figuring out what to keep and what to jettison. Ages 13–up.
2. Take Heart, My Child: A Mother's Dream
In her debut children’s book, Fox & Friends cohost Earhardt assumes the voice of a mother expressing her hopes for her daughter, advising her child to take risks and be independent. In a sequence of vignettes, the story moves from the sea to the forest and into the night sky, initially described in fanciful terms: “Before you were born/ Before you shared my day/ I dreamed a love song/ Near a grand deer ballet,” reads one spread as newcomer Kim shows a young woman and six deer prancing through a field. The light-dappled illustrations play well with the text’s ethereal references to nature, alternating between images of the mother-to-be on her own and ones of her daughter swinging from a tree, peering at the moon through a telescope, and flying a kite on the beach. Though the advice can be syrupy or overfamiliar (“May you take the high road/ Through the road may be long/ Pledge to follow your heart/ So your heart will grow strong”), Earhardt’s you-can-do-it message is consistently encouraging. Ages 4–8.
1. The Raven King
“What a strange constellation they all were.” Such is Richard Gansey’s assessment of the teenage magical dreamers, psychic amplifiers, scryers, and ghosts who have been his closest companions in his efforts to find the sleeping Welsh king Glendower over the previous three books of the Raven Cycle. The search for that king—and the fact that Gansey is supposed to die this year, probably from a kiss from Blue—has hung over each novel, and it all comes to a head now. Despite Stiefvater’s use of repeating phrases (“Depending on where you began the story, it was about...”) to create an air of finality and heighten the mythic scope of Gansey’s quest, the path to what readers have always known was coming is swirling, chaotic, and unpredictable, drawing in robotic bees, real wasps, a cloven-hooved girl, a terrifically powerful demon, tree spirits, fast cars, and a couple of eagerly anticipated kisses. The playful, imaginative force of Stiefvater’s writing works its magic once again, and most readers will finish this saga not with regret or disappointment but with hope. Ages 14–up.
