Reading is a great exercise for the mind. It helps kids calm down and relax, opening doors of new knowledge to enlighten their minds. Kids who read grow up to have better cognitive (认知的) skills. Reading is good for everyone, not only children or young adults. You will find many lists with up to 30 reasons why reading is important. Our expert librarians selected the year’s best books for kids, teens, and adults. Check out these outstanding titles and choose what your kids might be interested in.

Hurricane Summer By Asha Bromfield

Tilla’s mother says you get two birthdays-One the day you are born and the other when you give birth to yourself. While visiting Jamaica, Illa faces a storm of dark secrets that threaten to unravel her life while an actual storm threatens the lives of those she loves.

Darling By K. Ancrum

When a boy named Peter appears at Wendy Darling’s window and invites her to join him and his friends for a night out in Chicago, she eagerly agrees. But as the night slowly gets out of control, not even Wendy can predict the secrets she’ll uncover.

The Dire Days of Willow weep Manor By Shaenon K. Garrity

It is illustrated (作插图) by Christopher Baldwin. Gothic romance superfan Haley saves a stranger from drowning and wakes up at Willow weep Manor, which embodies the settings of her favorite books. Willow weep hides a device that prevents evil from entering our world-but it’s falling apart.

The Cost of Knowing By Brittney Morris

With the power to see the future of anything-or anyone-he touches, Alex deals with extreme worry.But when he gets a vision of his brother’s death in just a few days’ time, Alex has to reconnect with his brother and see if he can stop what he knows is coming.

Sean Elliot Martin and Pancho Timmons are friends on a mission to change the world, one small act of kindness at a time. That’s the subject of their new book, Quick and Easy World Change, which they released as an e-book.

The project is inspired by another kindness-related book Martin worked on years ago. The latest one takes parts of the first book and updates it with more inspiring stories and lists of little things people can do daily to spread goodness wherever they go. “Make a game of giving—you can assign yourself points for different little things,” Martin said. “How many doors can I open each day for someone with their hands full? Or how many different ways can I help someone today? Or how many good deeds can I think of?” It also addresses the concept of compound kindness—a domino effect of good deeds. “If you compliment one person, they’re likely to compliment two to five people,” Martin said.

Both authors’ lives have been impacted by the kindness of others, they each explained. Quick and Easy World Change is their way to pay those experiences and sentiments forward. For Timmons, a teacher’s compassion in college was a turning point for him. “I did all the things I was supposed to do—worked hard, studied hard—and ended up failing pretty miserably,” he recalled. “But the professor pulled me aside and said, ‘You’re an A student turning in C and D work because you’re clearly dyslexic (读写困难) and not getting the help you need.” “That 5-minute conversation was the difference between dropping out of college and getting two master’s degrees and now running two companies,” Timmons said. “I’ve spent my career trying to pay that forward.”

With the electronic version available, their plan is to follow up with hard copies. The authors hope people will use it like a workbook, a living document they can mark up, reflect on and use to make their lives—and the lives of others—better.

If you’re looking to build a children’s library, one of the first books you’re likely to come across is The Snowy Day. 【小题1】 After it came out, it became the first picture book to have an African-American main character. Keats won the Caldecott Medal for his illustrations(插图) in the book in 1963.

“【小题2】 However, none of the books I had drawn pictures for had any black kids as main characters—except for blacks in the background,” he wrote in a book.“My book would have a black kid there simply because he should have been there all along.”

But The Snowy Day is welcome for much more than its political importance. It’s a magical story about a boy named Peter exploring his neighborhood on a snowy day. 【小题3】 One of my son’s favorite pages shows that Peter was sitting in a warm bath after telling his mother about his adventures. We always read the text together, and he thought about it for a long time.

【小题4】 It’s still on the Time’s list of The 100 Best Children’s Books of All Time. And Amazon Studios is now releasing a holiday special(特别节目) based on the book. The special includes the voice talent of Regina King, Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Angela Bassett, as well as an original song by Boyz Ⅱ Men.

Diversity(多样化) in children’s literature continues to be an issue today. 【小题5】