Welcome to The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
We are one of the nation’s leading children’s book review journals for school and public librarians. We provide concise summaries and critical evaluations to help you find the books you need for your library’s collection.
March’s Big Picture
Ah, the class presentation, the perennial assignment that is loved by few, feared by many—and failed by many, according to the classroom of creatures in this month’s Big Picture, My Presentation Today is About the Anaconda. Humans, the animals say, are simply too boring to actually convey the majesty (or grossness or silliness) of their fellow animals. Thus, the twenty creatures in this ingenious anthology decide to present on twenty other animals to give readers an insider’s perspective on the world of the wild. Dutch author Bibi Dumon Tak and translator Nancy Forest-Flier also present classroom banter immediately recognizable to the human reader, and the clever result is a send-up of the presentation format that effectively and invitingly reveals scientific information about both the animal speakers and their subjects.
2024 Blue Ribbons 
Our best books of the year for 2024 is available now! Journeys, both literal and figurative, thread through this year’s Blue Ribbon list, so the staff here at the Bulletin invites readers to take a literary excursion with the books we’ve named the best of 2024. From the haunted backwoods of Kentucky to the streets of Harlem, from magical realms to the high seas of a living room rug, the list is a wild and deeply satisfying ride—we wish you safe travels and happy reading!
The Center for Children’s Books
The Bulletin is partnered with the Center for Children’s Books, a research center whose mission is to facilitate the creation and dissemination of exemplary and progressive research and scholarship related to youth-focused resources, literature, and librarianship.
Cover illustration from My Presentation Today is About the Anaconda. Illustration copyright © 2025 by Annemarie van Haeringen. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Levine Querido.
