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  • 12 of the best TV shows to watch this June

    12 of the best TV shows to watch this June

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    12. Black Mirror

    After a four-year break, the ominous, playful Black Mirror returns for its sixth season, arriving at a time when fears about technology and artificial intelligence are likely to make the anthology series’ dystopian stories more topical than ever. Netflix has announced the titles and stars of this season’s five episodes, which include Joan is Awful, a meta-tale about an ordinary woman astonished to see that her life has been adapted into a streaming series, and that she is portrayed by Salma Hayek Pinault. Aaron Paul’s character lands in an alternate 1969 in Beyond the Sea. And Zazie Beetz stars in Mazey Day as a troubled celebrity hounded by the paparazzi. The gap between seasons was partly due to rights issues, and perhaps because, as series creator Charlie Brooker said in 2020, during the worst of the pandemic, “I don’t know what stomach there would for stories about societies falling apart”. It would be true to the dark spirit of Black Mirror if he has finally assumed the worst and given up waiting for things to get better.

    Black Mirror premieres in June on Netflix internationally

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  • Is Agra the most shocking Indian film ever made?

    Is Agra the most shocking Indian film ever made?

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    However the rise of digital technology in the 21st Century, resulting in filmmaking becoming cheaper, has led to a revival of independent Indian cinema in recent years, with filmmakers such as Shonali Bose and Anurag Kashyap rising to prominence. As censorship has relaxed, the topics being tackled have broadened, with films looking at troubling political histories and social causes such as LGBTQ rights. These films have found audiences at festivals such as Berlin and Cannes. Kashyap’s latest film, the neo-noir Kennedy, purporting to be based on real-life police corruption in India, is playing in the Midnight Section of the Cannes Film Festival, a section that celebrates cinema that pushes the boundaries. 

    And as this strand of Indian cinema has begun finding more critical acclaim around the world, it has also had an impact on popular Bollywood cinema, with the studios having to adapt their films to the changing tastes of the audience, making them less chaste and tackling daring subject matters. “This has led to the ‘masala’ guys of Bollywood dealing with more topical subjects in realistic ways,” says Shedde, who also points out conversely that filmmakers from the independent scene have been “embracing song-and-dance to be more accessible to a large audience.”

    It’s certainly an exciting time for Indian cinema, with the promise of an era of rich, diverse and divisive films that are more in tune with Indian cinema’s transgressive roots than the Bollywood output that took over. These films hold a mirror up to society and like the works of Gaspar Noé, Jack Smith and Kenneth Anger (who died this week), to name three filmmakers, they are by their nature incredibly divisive and at times extremely difficult to watch. Agra fits into this mould. Behl so successfully manages to get us into Guru’s psyche that the film becomes abhorrent, attacking our senses and creating an unpleasant visceral reaction. Even as the plot widens to include money-lending, the distinction between fact and fiction is difficult to discern, which some will find powerfully unnerving, and others may find simply confusing. But the best thing about Behl’s is work that it manages to tackle one of India’s biggest and least talked-about issues without feeling like a lecture. May more and more Indian cinema be just as provocative and creatively bold.

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  • David Lynch interview: How the Mulholland Drive director worked with composer Angelo Badalamenti

    David Lynch interview: How the Mulholland Drive director worked with composer Angelo Badalamenti

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    From the darkness of Mulholland Drive to the soaring sweep of Twin Peaks, Angelo Badalamenti created the soundscape that accompanies director David Lynch’s vision. The composer died in December 2022, and Lynch has now given an interview to BBC Radio 3’s Sound of Cinema. “Even in the so-called dark things, there’s a beauty,” he tells Matthew Sweet.

    Listen to the interview on BBC Radio Three’s Sound of Cinema, which airs on 27 May at 3pm BST.

    David Lynch: Angelo, he can do anything, he can write any kind of music. He studied all the classical things, but he wrote jingles for a long time, so he can kind of do anything. The secret to Angelo is that if you know what you want, you’ve got to bring it out of him. It’s there in him but you’ve got to bring it out.

    Matthew Sweet: You first met him on the set of Blue Velvet, can you describe how he struck you? Was it love at first sight?

    DL: In a way it was – Wilmington North Carolina was where we were. I wanted to get a local band, not a good band, just a local, hard-working band to back up Isabella Rossellini singing Blue Velvet. We were working away, working away and nothing was happening. We’ve got Fred Caruso to thank because he kept at me: “David. This isn’t working, let me call my friend Angelo” but he was calling him Andy then. Angelo went by Andy Bedali in the early days, bless his heart – he sure didn’t have to do that, but he did and Fred said, “Andy will come up and make this right.” And I said, ‘okay bring Angelo up’. And the next morning he worked with Isabella in the lobby of her hotel which had a piano that was there and came at lunchtime and played it for me at the Beaumont house in Blue Velvet. And I said, Angelo, we can cut this into the film just the way it is! It’s fantastic!

    Lyrics start saying something to Angelo’s music brain and out comes this feeling from the lyrics. Because he can do anything, I could say things to him and he’d start playing that. And if I didn’t like that, I’d say something different and it would change!

    MS: You wrote lyrics for him in Mysteries of Love in Blue Velvet, and I think I can tell that Angelo Badalmenti loved you, because he’d say in interviews, David Lynch gave me these lyrics and they didn’t rhyme, they had no hooks, what am I supposed to do with this!

    DL: Angelo is in a way, old school – so I kind of confounded him, and he did like lyrics that rhymed and he did like form, but he could break that form easily if you force him. And bless his heart, this guy could do anything! Another thing, Fred Caruso said, “You’re always writing these little things on scraps of paper, why don’t you send something up to Angelo?” I said, “Fred! Give me a break!” Anyway, one thing led to another and he wrote Mysteries of Love. And then I said, “okay Angelo – I want you to score this picture.” And I’d listen to Shostakovich in A minor all the time writing this, this has got to have this Russian American feel in this film, and he said “okay” and off he went. And then we started working together, big time after that.

    MS: Could we hear about what happened when you were in the room together, there is something a bit alchemical about this. The way I’ve heard him describe it is that you’re having a feeling or a dream or a vision and he’s next to you translating it into music. What would you have said to him when describing what you wanted as the main theme for Twin Peaks?

    DL: Well the main theme of Twin Peaks is Falling. And Falling was a thing Angelo and I wrote and Julee Cruise sang it. We wrote that before, when Twin Peaks was just a dream, only in the beginnings, and I said you guys, this thing is going to be the theme of this show. And they looked at me like, are you crazy?

    MS: You describe being in the room…

    DL: How it always works with Angelo and me, I know the mood of a thing and the feel of a thing. So, sitting with Angelo, I sit next to him on a bench or close to him always, and I say, “Angelo it’s gotta have this kind of a feel”. And he closes his eyes and he plays something, and then I say, “no it’s gotta be lower, or slower, or more mystery in there”, and then he starts playing something else. And then I say, “no that’s still too fast, it’s not dark enough, it’s not heavy and foreboding enough”. And then he starts playing something, and it all just comes over him, and I say “that’s beautiful Angelo”, and I try to psychically pull out the next stuff. But because he caught the first thing, then in the world of music it’s logical that these other things follow, and he knows that and there they are and he brings them out, and there it is – no two ways about it.

    MS: I feel you’re almost reaching for something together. Those climbing piano notes in Laura Palmer’s theme, that sustained synth bed below it. Where do you go together, you and he in that music?

    DL: Well Angelo goes to the stars for sure. He catches a thing and I’m there as his brother filling the air with this freedom and energy to get it. It’s so delicate, the early stages of everything is so delicate, and it just needs to be safe and packed with possibilities so Angelo can find it. Then, when he catches it’s so incredible, so incredible.

    MS: There’s sorrow and a sense of sin in a lot of your music together. Angelo said you brought out his dark side, what did he mean by that?

    DL: I brought out if anything, true Angelo, which is love. The feeling he can get is a heart feeling, full heart, deep love – deep, deep love. Even in the so-called dark things, there’s a beauty. It can be foreboding, but there is also something else in there that’s bigger. It’s truthful.

    MS: Let’s talk about Lost Highway, a film that gave me nightmares. It’s a good example of how the music expresses the nature of the characters, because Bill Pullman’s character is a saxophonist and he plays this crazy, wailing riff in a track called Red Bats with Teeth. Did you want that note of derangement that enters this cue? The madness of it.

    DL: I think his name is Bob who is this saxophone player, and he’s a great saxophone player. We were at Capital Records I believe and Bob was there, riffing. And I would say, “Bob” – and this was like all through Lost Highway, this kind of talk went on – “Bob, I’m gonna go to sleep with the amount of energy you’re putting out. You’re sending me to sleep, pal”. And then he’d look at me funny and he’d play louder, with way more power. I’d say “Bob, I talk about falling asleep, I actually went to sleep during that last one, come on man!” So then, pretty soon, Bob is absolutely insane mad, crazed and he comes up with this thing. And he really loved it. Angelo was there, but it was more up to Bob to find that thing in him.

    MS: Mulholland Drive, your Hollywood noir, makes the space of the LA bungalow one of its theatres of operation. You and Angelo are both credited as composers for this, why is that? Why are you there too in this one?

    DL: Again, I’m working with Angelo and sometimes I – I don’t meant to trick Angelo or anything like that, but I’ll say something like, “play Shostakovich”, so Angelo will start playing. Then I’ll say, “play Wagner, Angelo”. And then he’ll start playing Wagner, and somewhere in there there’s these notes that fly and I’ll say “Angelo, what is that thing right there?”, so then Angelo plays that, and his eyes pop open, and he plays it again and plays it again and he finds this thing or that thing. And then we had two things that were quite good, but they didn’t feel finished and I said “Angelo, why don’t we play both of them together?” and his eyes widen up and he thinks and he plays both of them together and that’s the theme of Mulholland Drive. And he wrote some beautiful things for that film. We find them, together, because in the world of music, there’s a thing called common sense. You can’t just give the music over to somebody. They can be in another house, another state, another country. They see the film unfinished, and then you can’t expect them to write a thing that you’d plug in that’s going to work. Once in a while maybe, but it has to pass through one person, and that’s the filmmaker. It’s not an ego thing, it’s so that it all holds together. You can’t let the set designer design that, and the music person design the music and the editor design the editing. It’s just ridiculous, they’re there to help you. The filmmaker makes the final decisions on all these things, and talks to people and gets them to zero in on the ideas that you’re trying to translate into cinema.

    MS: Angelo was a schoolteacher before he was a composer. He taught music and he taught English, what did he teach you?

    DL: Angelo brought me into the world of music, he opened up a whole world for me. I played the trumpet in junior high, and I had to quit playing trumpet in high school because in order to play the trumpet in school, you had to be part of the marching band and go to school at six in the morning and practise marching to go to some football game!

    MS: You didn’t fancy that idea?

    DL: It was horrible, so I quit! I said, “you’re kidding me, I’m not getting up at 5 in the morning” so Angelo brought me into the world of music and opened up this world that was so incredible, and Angelo and I would talk. He lived in New Jersey and I live in LA, and we would talk on the phone pretty god darn regularly, since I met him. We were like brothers, I just love Angelo, I just love him. And when he passed over, went to the other side, it struck me harder than – so many people have died that I’ve worked with, I miss every one of them, and I just don’t see why people have to die. But Angelo, it really hit me. I’m not going to be able to call Angelo on the phone, I’m not going to be able to hear his voice anymore, I’m not going to be able to work with him. All this music that’s in him, it’s not going to come out. It’s just horrible.

    MS: I’ve noticed that all the way through this conversation David, you’ve referred to him in the present tense.

    DL: You have to keep Angelo alive. I believe life is a continuum, and that no one really dies, they just drop their physical body and we’ll all meet again, like the song says. It’s sad but it’s not devastating if you think like that. Otherwise I don’t see how anybody could ever, once they see someone die, that they’d just disappear forever and that’s what we’re all bound to do. I’m sorry but it just doesn’t make any sense, it’s a continuum, and we’re all going to be fine at the end of the story.

    MS: Is he there in the music you compose now? Say if I listen to the music you composed on your own, like Inland Empire, can I hear his influence?

    DL: You might. There’s certain things that I like, that Angelo liked and played, and if those ever come out, someone would say Angelo wrote that, there’s certain things, but really the number one thing Angelo can do is beauty and love. He can tear your heart out, he can make you weep like a baby, just pull the heartstrings Angelo can do, just a beautiful soul he is and so talented.

    MS: I want to do something social, in our minds, I want you and Angelo to go out for lunch together.

    DL: Angelo is Italian, so it’s like pasta, spaghetti and meatballs, that’s Angelo, when he calls a sauce gravy. I associate Angelo with really good Italian food.

    MS: What’s the best dinner you had with him? You and he out together, can you remember a really good night out together?

    DL: After The Straight Story screened at Cannes Film Festival, Angelo and I, and Harry Dean and a bunch of people went to this petite bar at the Carlton Hotel. And we were having some wine and some hors-d’oeuvres, Harry Dean suddenly said something about a dream he had. A dream he had of chocolate bunnies. So Angelo and I laughed, and then Harry Dean said another sentence, coupled on top of what he had said that was funny to us, and now this sentence, it got us another laugh, even bigger than the first. And then Harry Dean said a third thing and it made us laugh even harder and then Harry Dean said a fourth thing, and Angelo and I found ourselves laughing even harder still. And Harry Dean said 17 things that night! So Angelo and I almost died! We couldn’t laugh any more. It was painful, all the laughter tears were gone and we were just dying! And we talk about this. No stand-up comic has every come close to this, for us. How did Harry Dean Stanton do this? Also Angelo and I would talk about Martin Luther King as this poet, who had this way of speaking that was like music, and was built like music, more and more and then this cosmic feeling comes more and more until you want to cry because it’s so beautiful and profound, this kind of thing we would talk about.

    MS: Do you find that you still talk to him?

    DL: I talk to Angelo all the time.

    MS: Can I ask what you say? Can I ask what you ask him?

    DL: I just talk to him like, I talk to him about the weather, or Angelo you play this thing so beautifully when I listen to his old stuff. I still have a bunch of things and he’s just alive still for me.

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  • Alice in Wonderland’s hidden messages

    Alice in Wonderland’s hidden messages

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    It’s perhaps a testament to something else, too: the unsolvable mystery of its author’s deepest self, and the space that creates within the text for a kaleidoscopic multitude of interpretations. His friendships with children cast an undeniable shadow, and in the V&A’s blockbuster 2021 exhibition, Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, he was notably backgrounded, the famous and, it’s argued, provocative portrait he took of Alice Liddell as “The Beggar Maid” nowhere to be seen. But while the likes of the #MeToo movement has added urgency to the vexed question of whether it’s possible to admire good art made by bad people, in the case of Charles Dodgson, we’re unlikely to ever truly know whether he was a repressed predator or a kindly don, shy and stuttering. Indeed, as writer Katie Roiphe has suggested, it’s possible that none of the categories available to us today can contain him.

    His muse, by contrast, grew up to lead the kind of life expected of a woman of her class, and after briefly catching the attention of Ruskin and the Prince of Wales’ son, Leopold, she settled down as Mrs Reginald Hargreaves. Of her three sons, only one survived World War One, the child she’d named – purely coincidentally, she always maintained – Caryl.

    Meanwhile, debate about the world of her fictional alter ego rages on like a never-ending mad hatter’s tea party. Alice is a parable of eating disorders; a cautionary tale about the then new-fangled symbolic algebra; a satire of the Wars of the Roses. In the wacky realm of rival theories, we all become as confounded as Alice.

    In his day job, Dodgson lectured on mathematics, and it’s little wonder that his stories are teeming with arithmetical and geometrical allusions. Alice is confronted with a series of puzzles from the Mad Hatter’s riddle to the Queen’s croquet game, but try as she might to solve them, they invariably turn out to have little purpose and no answer. Though Dodgson was a logician, Wonderland is a realm in which illogic rules. And maybe that’s where the ultimate message of his exuberantly inventive book lies: the world is a mad place in which expectations are often frustrated. Rather than striving to lock down meaning, we’d do better to simply delight in the ride.

    Read more about BBC Culture’s 100 greatest children’s books:
    The 100 greatest children’s books
    Why Where the Wild Things Are is the greatest children’s book
    The 20 greatest children’s books
    The 21st Century’s greatest children’s books
    Who voted?
    #100GreatestChildrensBooks

    Love books? Join BBC Culture Book Club on Facebook, a community for literature fanatics all over the world.

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  • How book banning escalated in the US

    How book banning escalated in the US

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    “What gives me hope,” Johnson tells BBC Culture, “is that the majority of the country is against book bans. The fact that the bans are activating students to fight for their rights to have books. And that we are winning in a lot of counties, and keeping the books on shelves. We are galvanised and organised and ready to continue this fight for as long as it takes. Furthermore, the banning of books has not stopped publishers from allowing more stories to be written. Eventually, there will be so many stories that you can’t ban them all.” 

    Nobel laureate Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, a coming-of-age story that explores the effects of racism on a young girl’s psyche, is third on the ALA’s most challenged list. Morrison once explained that the book’s title was inspired by black childhood friend who, at age 11 told her she had been praying for two years for blue eyes. “This kind of racism hurts,” Morrison said. “This is not lynchings and murders and drownings. This is interior pain.”

    As BBC Culture honours the 100 greatest children’s books of all time, it’s a good moment to envision the children’s books still to be written (and illustrated), the myriad of voices still to be heard, the stories still to be told. And to consider Morrison’s eloquent argument against book banning in Burn This Book, the PEN America anthology she edited. “The thought that leads me to contemplate with dread the erasure of other voices, of unwritten novels, poems whispered or swallowed for fear of being overheard by the wrong people, outlawed languages flourishing underground, essayists’ questions challenging authority never being posed, unstaged plays, cancelled films – that thought is a nightmare. As though a whole universe is being described in invisible ink.”

    Read more about BBC Culture‘s 100 greatest children‘s books:

    –          The 100 greatest children’s books

    –          Why Where the Wild Things Are is the greatest children’s book

    –          The 21st Century’s greatest children’s books

    –          Who voted?

    #100GreatestChildrensBooks

    Love books? Join BBC Culture Book Club on Facebook, a community for literature fanatics all over the world.

    If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.

    And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

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  • How to Have Sex and the Cannes films showing sexual assault is still endemic

    How to Have Sex and the Cannes films showing sexual assault is still endemic

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    On-screen, what’s interesting is how effective these various films have been in showing how a horrifying collective blindness around what constitutes consent runs deep – with predators seemingly blissfully unaware of the traumatic effects of their behaviour, while their victims shrug off the behaviour as part of “normal” life.

    Walker’s How to Have Sex follows three girls on holiday in Greece. One of the girls is a virgin, but it’s almost expected by all three that she will go home having slept with a boy. Walker’s expertly crafted movie makes it apparent that the girl is not sure about losing her virginity on a beach to a guy she likes less than her best mate, but rather than stop the sexual encounter, she almost resigns herself to it. While difficult to watch, this encounter plays like the unfortunate behaviour of teenagers – but the next night, when the girl refuses the boy’s advances, he pounces while she is asleep, with her waking up as he is ready to have sex with her; she then resigns herself to it again. The horror comes not just from the action but also from the fact that Walker shows it so matter of factly, as if it is a rite of passage of being a girl coming of age today, a feeling reinforced by the reactions of her friends when she finally tells them. 

    In Khan’s In Flames, the horror of predatory male behaviour takes on a literal flavour with a shocking twist towards the end. However before then, the men are frightening enough for its young heroine Mariam, who has to navigate men indecently exposing themselves on the streets, and men complaining when she doesn’t add them as a friend on social media, while even a rickshaw driver who helps her get home after an accident blows his chivalry when he turns up back at her home the next morning. Her life in Karachi is shown as being one where she has little agency, as public spaces are dangerous for a girl to be out alone. Add to this her mother’s overly watchful eye on her at home, born of fear for her daughter, and it’s apparent that Mariam’s life is defined by the predatory behaviour surrounding her.

    The most harrowing dismissal of predatory behaviour comes in Hania’s docudrama Four Daughters, in which teenage girls accept the advances of their mother’s boyfriend because they know there is no one who will listen to them, especially not their mother, and probably not the authorities in Tunisia and Libya. It’s clearly abuse, and it’s horrifying when one daughter says she accepted the man’s behaviour because “she was so happy to see the light in her mother’s eyes when she was with him”. It’s a terrible story of self-sacrifice and the acceptance of abuse, as the avenues to fight it are so limited.

    Meanwhile in Haynes’ May December, Julianne Moore plays a teacher who has been in a 24-year relationship with one of her pupils, who she preyed on when he was 13. The film takes place 24 years later, and despite the teacher having been to jail, the young man continued his relationship with her, marrying and having children with her. Throughout, he fails to see how his wife’s behaviour has been coercive and abusive.

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  • From Succession to hit book Pineapple Street: stories of the super-rich

    From Succession to hit book Pineapple Street: stories of the super-rich

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    “I’m 43, on the edge of Generation X and Millennial, and my attitude has always been: money seems cool, I would really like to have some! Literally that unexamined,” Jackson admits with breezy candour. “Yet if you were in your 20s right now and had a trust fund, you would probably have complicated feelings about it. So I wanted to write about generational wealth, from generational perspectives.”  

    Jackson’s inspiration was also quite literally on her doorstep: living on Pineapple Street in Brooklyn Heights – albeit in a modest flat – she would snoop on more moneyed neighbours. “I was always walking past this apartment with these giant bay windows and a grand piano and those big Chinese urns – like, who lives there?”

    In fact, Jackson was well-placed to imagine: while she may hail from middle-class, small-town Massachusetts, when she moved to New York she was thrust into a world of publishing parties and fancy lunches, as well as sharing an apartment with three investment bankers. These days, she gets insights into her neighbours via her children’s pre-school: they recently held a fundraiser where one of the prizes was a child-sized Tesla. Let’s just say, she’s been keeping notes.  

    And this, surely, is a key part of the appeal of stories about the mega-rich: the joy of snooping. Whether we aspire to – or are repulsed by – extreme wealth, many of us can’t resist a good gawp at its excesses – or its studiously understated “quiet luxury”.  

    Rich-people narratives

    At its most basic, the attraction of rich-people narratives can be the opportunity for pure, vacuous fantasy – the escapism of imagining what it would be like to be stinking rich. There’s a reason many romance novels and steamy bonkbusters feature stupidly affluent heroes: why not dream about being swept into the lap of not only a lover, but also luxury?   

    But there’s also something particularly tantalising about glimpsing into an elite world that is full of mysterious codes or strict hierarchies. Much of Pineapple Street is spent watching an outsider figure, Sasha, marrying into the family and experiencing “class shame” for getting things wrong. Jackson has a theory about why we’re interested in etiquette: “I think we secretly believe we will one day be millionaires and so we should probably learn the codes so we’re ready. It is a crazy idea, deeply-baked in part of our psyche.”  

    Readers have long relished the chance to get an inside scoop on high society’s rules and ruthlessness, the machinations of who’s in or out, up or down. Social standing becomes a game (one that we might just secretly reckon we could win, if we only had the chance). An appetite for such drama is stoked everywhere from reality shows like Real Housewives or Below Deck to Jane Austen and Edith Wharton, Downton Abbey,  Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte.

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  • The 100 greatest children’s books: Who voted?

    The 100 greatest children’s books: Who voted?

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    Full list of votes by critic, in alphabetical order:

    Khyrunnisa A – Children’s author, India
    1. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    2. A Prefect’s Uncle (PG Wodehouse, 1903)
    3. According to Jennings (Anthony Buckeridge, 1954)
    4. Just William (Richmal Crompton, 1922)
    5. Trash (Andy Mulligan, 2010)
    6. Raymie Nightingale (Kate DiCamillo, 2016)
    7. The Panchatantra (Anonymous / folk, -200)
    8. The Railway Children (Edith Nesbit, 1906)
    9. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (Anonymous, translation by Richard Francis Burton, 1888)
    10. Dick Whittington and His Cat (Marcia Brown, 1950)

    Sahar Abdallah – Children’s books illustrator, Egypt
    1. The Illustrator’s Notebook (Mohieddin Ellabbad, 1999)
    2. Artists and Colours (Adly Rizkallah, 2006)
    3. From Heart to Heart (Fouad Haddad and Muhyiddin al-Labbad, 1990)
    4. Dictionary of Superstitious Beings (Shawqi Abdel Hakim)
    5. Happy Endings (Amal Farah, 2016)
    6. The Boy Fighting (Hijazi, 2020)
    7. Puppet Story (Samira Shafiq, 2000)
    8. The Most Beautiful Folk Tales (Jacob Sharoni and Helmy Al-Tuni, 2001)
    9. Sept vies (Walid Taher, 2012)
    10. Zin (Hassan Zahreddine, 2022)

    Christine Aebi – Illustrator, Schule für Gestaltung, St Gallen, Switzerland
    1. Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson, 2014)
    2. Die Mitte der Welt (Andreas Steinhöfel, 1998)
    3. Und was kommt dann? (Pernilla Stalfelt, 1999)
    4. Was machen die Mädchen? (Nikolaus Heidelbach, 1993)
    5. Jo im roten Kleid (Jens Thiele, 2004)
    6. König und König (Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland, 2000)
    7. Ich will die! (Imme Dros and Harrie Geelen, 1991)
    8. Das Buch von Julie mit dem Jungenschatten (Christian Bruel, 1981)
    9. Die wundersame Reise der kleinen Sophie (Els Pelgrom and Thé Tjong-Khing, 1984)
    10. Ich bin wie der Fluss (Jordan Scott and Sydney Smith, 2020)

    Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp – Literary translator and children’s book consultant, United Kingdom
    1. The Murderer’s Ape (Jakob Wegelius, 2014)
    2. Yours Sincerely, Giraffe (Megumi Iwasa, 2011)
    3. Fly Away Home (Christine Nöstlinger, 1973)
    4. The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark (Jill Tomlinson, 1968)
    5. Varjak Paw (SF Said and Dave McKean, 2003)
    6. Kiki’s Delivery Service (Eiko Kadono, 1985)
    7. That Summer At Kalagarh (Ranjit Lal, 2001)
    8. Mwikali and the Forbidden Mask (Shiko Nguru, 2022)
    9. Clementine Loves Red (Krystyna Boglar and Bohdan Butenko, 1970)
    10. Lampje and the Children of the Sea (Annet Schaap, 2017)

    Ekiuwa Aire – Children’s book author at Our Ancestories, Canada
    1. Osasu and the Great Wall of the Benin Empire (Tamkara Olayinka Adun, 2021)
    2. Malaika’s Costume (Nadia L Hohn and Irene Luxbacher, 2016)
    3. Malaika, Carnival Queen (Nadia L Hohn and Irene Luxbacher, 2023)
    4. A Piece of Black Cake for Santa (Yolanda T Marshall, 2017)
    5. My Soca Birthday Party: With Jollof Rice and Steel Pans (Yolanda T Marshall and Subi Bosa, 2020)
    6. Adventure in Morocco (Christine Mapondera-Talley and Anil Tortop, 2018)
    7. On the Streets of Ondo (Evelyn Olutola Logan and Kamala M Nair, 2022)
    8. Afia the Ashanti Princess: A Visit to the Motherland (Crystal Boateng and Gabriela Yancheva, 2020)
    9. Threads of Me: Kente for Show and Tell (Erica Asante and Chengetai Lerato Masalethulini, 2022)
    10. A is for Agbada: An African Alphabet Adventure (Udhedhe Olakpe, Ufuoma Olakpe and Gaby Zermeño, 2021)

    Pallavi Aiyar – Author and journalist, India
    1. The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien, 1954)
    2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon, 2003)
    3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (JK Rowling, 1999)
    4. Starry River of the Sky (Grace Lin, 2012)
    5. Help! I’m a Prisoner in a Toothpaste Factory (John Antrobus, 1978)
    6. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    7. Chinese Whiskers (Pallavi Aiyar, 2012)
    8. Malgudi Days (RK Narayan, 1943)
    9. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    10. The Fastest Boy in the World (Elizabeth Laird, 2014)

    Dr Amal Alaboud – Children’s author and translator, Saudi Arabia
    1. Red Line (Samar Mahfouz Barraj, 2014)
    2. My Friend, the Lion (Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, 2021)
    3. Maha of the Mountains (Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, 2009)
    4. Golden Dates (Noura Al-Khoori and Nauf Al Shaikh, 2013)
    5. Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, 1947)
    6. A Very Naughty Cat (Abeer Al Taher, 2014)
    7. The Panchatantra (Anonymous / folk, -200)
    8. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter, 1902)
    9. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    10. Aladdin (Anonymous / folk)

    Tom Allan – Writer, United Kingdom
    1. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    2. The Tiger Who Came to Tea (Judith Kerr, 1968)
    3. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    4. James and the Giant Peach (Roald Dahl, 1961)
    5. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908)
    6. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (TS Eliot, 1939)
    7. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    8. Where’s Spot? (Eric Hill, 1980)
    9. A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K Le Guin, 1968)
    10. Meg and Mog (Helen Nicholl and Jan Pieńkowski, 1972)

    Connor Allen – Children’s Laureate Wales, United Kingdom
    1. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (JK Rowling, 1998)
    2. Letterland ABC (Richard Carlisle, 1985)
    3. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (Charlie Mackesy, 2019)
    4. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter, 1902)
    5. Black Beauty (Anna Sewell, 1877)
    6. Becoming: Adapted for Younger Readers (Michelle Obama, 2021)
    7. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    8. The Worst Witch (Jill Murphy, 1974)
    9. Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Diamond Chase (Tracey Corderoy, 2016)
    10. We’re Going to Find the Monster (Malorie Blackman and Dapo Adeola, 2021)

    Ally – Book blogger, United Kingdom
    1. Geek Girl (Holly Smale, 2013)
    2. Sophie’s Snail (Dick King-Smith, 1988)
    3. Hetty Feather (Jacqueline Wilson, 2009)
    4. Amari and the Night Brothers (BB Alston, 2021)
    5. A Kind of Spark (Elle McNicoll, 2020)
    6. The Highland Falcon Thief (MG Leonard, 2020)
    7. The Wizards of Once (Cressida Cowell, 2017)
    8. The House with Chicken Legs (Sophie Anderson, 2018)
    9. Jamie: A joyful story of friendship, bravery and acceptance (LD Lapinski, 2023)
    10. Murder Most Unladylike (Robin Stevens, 2014)

    Daniel Ammann – Lecturer in Media Education, Zurich University of Teacher Education, Switzerland
    1. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain, 1876)
    2. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (JK Rowling, 1999)
    3. Krabat (Otfried Preussler, 1971)
    4. The Brothers Lionheart (Astrid Lindgren, 1973)
    5. Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer (Michael Ende, 1960)
    6. Peter and Wendy (JM Barrie, 1911)
    7. Heidi (Johanna Spyri, 1880)
    8. The Adventures of Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi, 1883)
    9. Mary Poppins (PL Travers, 1934)
    10. The Magician’s Nephew (CS Lewis, 1955)

    Hephzibah Anderson – Critic, journalist and occasional children’s books blogger, United Kingdom
    1. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    3. The Mouse and His Child (Russell Hoban, 1967)
    4. Fantastic Mr Fox (Roald Dahl, 1970)
    5. Frog and Toad are Friends (Arnold Lobel, 1970)
    6. The Runaway Bunny (Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, 1942)
    7. Moominland Midwinter (Tove Jansson, 1957)
    8. The Iron Man (Ted Hughes, 1968)
    9. Lily’s Big Day (Kevin Henkes, 2006)
    10. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter, 1902)

    Nando von Arb – Illustrator and comic book author, Switzerland
    1. The Three Robbers (Tomi Ungerer, 1961)
    2. No Kiss for Mother (Tomi Ungerer, 1973)
    3. Pokko and the Drum (Matthew Forsythe, 2019)
    4. Rufus: The Bat Who Loved Colours (Tomi Ungerer, 1961)
    5. What Do People Do All Day? (Richard Scarry, 1968)
    6. Tales from Moominvalley (Tove Jansson, 1962)
    7. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    8. Nutshell Library (Maurice Sendak, 1962)
    9. Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, 1947)
    10. The Story of Ferdinand (Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, 1936)

    Neil Armstrong – Journalist, United Kingdom
    1. The House at Pooh Corner (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1928)
    2. The Owl Service (Alan Garner, 1967)
    3. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908)
    4. The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien, 1954)
    5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (JK Rowling, 2000)
    6. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    7. The Silver Sword (Ian Serraillier, 1956)
    8. The Hundred and One Dalmatians (Dodie Smith, 1956)
    9. A Bear Called Paddington (Michael Bond, 1958)
    10. The Borrowers (Mary Norton, 1952)

    Adriana Arzate – IBBY México, Mexico
    1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    2. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    3. The Witches (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1983)
    4. Bridge to Terabithia (Katherine Paterson, 1977)
    5. The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman, 2008)
    6. Copo de algodón (María García Esperón, 2010)
    7. Lunática (Martha Riva Palacio Obón and Mercè López, 2015)
    8. The Bad Beginning (Lemony Snicket, 1999)
    9. Siete esqueletos decapitados (Antonio Malpica, 2009)
    10. Las dos muertes de Lina Posada (Jaime Alfonso Sandoval, 2011)

    Atinuke – Children’s author, Nigeria
    1. So Much! (Trish Cooke and Helen Oxenbury, 1994)
    2. Chike and the River (Chinua Achebe, 1966)
    3. Olu and Greta (Diana Ejaita, 2022)
    4. Crongton Knights (Alex Wheatle, 2016)
    5. Phoenix (SF Said and Dave McKean, 2013)
    6. The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats, 1962)
    7. Blueberry Girl (Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, 2009)
    8. The Brothers Lionheart (Astrid Lindgren, 1973)
    9. The Girl Savage (Katherine Rundell, 2011)
    10. You Are a Champion (Marcus Rashford and Carl Anka, 2021)

    Lilly Axster – Author of books for children, youth and adults, Austria
    1. Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson, 2014)
    2. Malka Mai (Mirjam Pressler, 2001)
    3. Out of My Mind (Sharon M Draper, 2010)
    4. Aristoteles und Dante entdecken die Geheimnisse des Universums (Benjamin Alire Sáenz, 2012)
    5. Jo im roten Kleid (Jens Thiele, 2004)
    6. Das Buch von Julie mit dem Jungenschatten (Christian Bruel, 1981)
    7. What Jamie Saw (Carolyn Coman, 1991)
    8. Ich bin wie der Fluss (Jordan Scott and Sydney Smith, 2020)
    9. Die wundersame Reise der kleinen Sophie (Els Pelgrom and Thé Tjong-Khing, 1984)
    10. Schneeriese (Susan Kreller, 2014)

    Lindsay Baker – Senior journalist, BBC Culture, United Kingdom
    1. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler (EL Konigsburg, 1967)
    2. Eloise (Kay Thompson, 1955)
    3. Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth (EL Konigsburg, 1967)
    4. The Cat in the Hat Comes Back (Dr Seuss, 1958)
    5. Heidi (Johanna Spyri, 1880)
    6. My Family and Other Animals (Gerald Durrell, 1956)
    7. Miss Happiness and Miss Flower (Rumer Godden, 1961)
    8. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
    9. Rastamouse and the Crucial Plan (Michael De Souza and Genevieve Webster, 2004)
    10. The Gruffalo (Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, 1999)

    Jutta Bauer – Author and illustrator, Germany
    1. Adelaide das fliegende Känguruh (Tomi Ungerer, 1959)
    2. Mumins lange Reise (Tove Jansson, 1945)
    3. Als die Welt noch jung war (Jürg Schubiger and Rotraut Susanne Berner, 1996)
    4. Ente, Tod und Tulpe (Wolf Erlbruch, 2007)
    5. Man wird doch wohl mal wütend werden dürfen (Toon Tellegen and Marc Boutavant, 2002)
    6. Der kleine Nick (René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé, 1959)
    7. Bridget and the Grey Wolves (Pija Lindenbaum, 2000)
    8. Where is the Cake? (Thé Tjong-Khing, 2004)
    9. The Bear’s Song (Benjamin Chaud, 2011)
    10. Everyone Walks Away (Eva Lindström, 2019)

    Sam Beckbessinger – Author and Associate Lecturer, Bath Spa University, South Africa
    1. A Monster Calls (Patrick Ness, 2011)
    2. Fiela’s Child (Dalene Matthee, 1985)
    3. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    4. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    5. A Bear Called Paddington (Michael Bond, 1958)
    6. Refilwe (Zukiswa Wanner and Tamsin Hinrichsen, 2015)
    7. The Book with No Pictures (BJ Novak, 2016)
    8. Nimona (ND Stevenson, 2015)
    9. Julián Is a Mermaid (Jessica Love, 2018)
    10. Akata Witch (Nnedi Okorafor, 2011)

    Sandra L Beckett – Professor Emeritus, Brock University, Canada
    1. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    2. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    3. The Adventures of Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi, 1883)
    4. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter, 1902)
    5. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    6. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    7. The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien, 1954)
    8. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    9. The Amber Spyglass (Philip Pullman, 2000)
    10. The Neverending Story (Michael Ende, 1979)

    Rotraut Susanne Berner – Author and illustrator, Germany
    1. Die Märchen der Brüder Grimm (Brothers Grimm, 1812)
    2. The Story of Doctor Dolittle (Hugh Lofting, 1920)
    3. The Baron in the Trees (Italo Calvino, 1957)
    4. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884)
    5. No Kiss for Mother (Tomi Ungerer, 1973)
    6. Der Struwwelpeter (Heinrich Hoffmann, 1845)
    7. Die Zauberlaterne (Wolfheinrich von der Mülbe, 1937)
    8. Edward Lears kompletter Nonsense (Edward Lear, 1895)
    9. Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank (Anne Frank, 1947)
    10. Krazy Kat (George Herriman, 1913)

    Tina Bilban – IBBY Slovenia, Slovenia
    1. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    2. Voor altijd samen, amen (Guus Kuijer, 1999)
    3. Tonje Glimmerdal (Maria Parr, 2009)
    4. I Talk Like a River (Jordan Scott and Sydney Smith, 2020)
    5. Ropotarna (Peter Svetina and Damijan Stepančič, 2012)
    6. Bröderna Lejonhjärta (Astrid Lindgren, 1973)
    7. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    8. Wave (Suzy Lee, 2008)
    9. Rico, Oskar und die Tieferschatten (Andreas Steinhöfel, 2008)
    10. Do Not Lick this Book (Idan Ben-Barak and Julian Frost, 2017)

    Donovan Bixley – Children’s author and illustrator, New Zealand
    1. The Lorax (Dr Seuss, 1972)
    2. Danny the Champion of the World (Roald Dahl, 1975)
    3. The Arrival (Shaun Tan, 2006)
    4. The Church Mouse (Graham Oakley, 1972)
    5. How Droofus the Dragon Lost his Head (Bill Peet, 1971)
    6. Badjelly the Witch (Spike Milligan, 1973)
    7. The Gruffalo (Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, 1999)
    8. Fuzzy Doodle (Melinda Szymanik and Donovan Bixley, 2016)
    9. Coraline (Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, 2002)
    10. Revolting Rhymes (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1982)

    Joël Eboueme Bognomo – Children’s author and IBBY Liaison Officer, Cameroon
    1. Ne tirez pas sur l’oiseau Moqueur (Harper Lee, 1960)
    2. Mamadou et Bineta sont devenus grands (André Davesne and J Gouin, 2001)
    3. Petit doux n’a pas peur (Marie Wabbes, 1998)
    4. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    5. Arthur High King of Britain (Michael Morpurgo, 1994)
    6. One Piece, Volume 1: Romance Dawn (Eiichiro Oda, 1997)
    7. Timoté fête Pâques (Emmanuelle Massonaud and Mélanie Combes, 2015)
    8. Le fils d’Agatha Moudio (Francis Bebey, 1987)
    9. L’esprit nature au quotidien (Maud Albert and Simon Quiniou, 2019)
    10. Le temps des secrets (Marcel Pagnol, 1962)

    Dr Melanie Ramdarshan Bold – Senior Lecturer in Children’s Literature, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
    1. Moominland Midwinter (Tove Jansson, 1957)
    2. The Undefeated (Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson, 2019)
    3. I Want My Hat Back (Jon Klassen, 2011)
    4. So Much! (Trish Cooke and Helen Oxenbury, 1994)
    5. The Arrival (Shaun Tan, 2006)
    6. A Kind of Spark (Elle McNicoll, 2020)
    7. Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson, 2014)
    8. We Are Water Protectors (Carole Lindstrom and Michaela Goade, 2020)
    9. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    10. A Bear Called Paddington (Michael Bond, 1958)

    Murti Bunanta – Children’s literature specialist, children’s book writer, founder and president of Society for the Advancement of Children’s Literature, Indonesia
    1. Jacob Have I Loved (Katherine Paterson, 1980)
    2. Parvana 1: Sang Pencari Nafkah (Deborah Ellis, 2000)
    3. Timun Mas (The Golden Cucumber) (Suyadi)
    4. Anak Rantau (Ahmad Fuadi, 2017)
    5. Misteri Kota Tua (Yovita Siswati, 2014)
    6. Fat Cat: A Danish Folktale (Margaret Read MacDonald and Julie Paschkis, 2001)
    7. Turtle Knows Your Name (Ashley Bryan, 1989)
    8. Misteri Mamoli Kuno (Agnes Bemoe, 2022)
    9. Pedagang Peci Kecurian (Suyadi, 1971)
    10. A Stroll with Mr Gaudí (Pau Estrada, 2013)

    Imogen Carter – Picture book critic and assistant editor, The Observer, United Kingdom
    1. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    2. The Tiger Who Came to Tea (Judith Kerr, 1968)
    3. Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, 1947)
    4. The BFG (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1982)
    5. The Paper Dolls (Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb, 2012)
    6. The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats, 1962)
    7. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    8. Barbara Throws a Wobbler (Nadia Shireen, 2019)
    9. Beetle Boy (MG Leonard, 2016)
    10. The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank, 1947)

    Sophie Casson – Editorial and children’s book illustrator, Canada
    1. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    2. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
    3. Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh, 1964)
    4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    5. Histoire de Babar (Jean de Brunhoff, 1931)
    6. Le petit Nicolas (René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé, 1959)
    7. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    8. Les malheurs de Sophie (Comtesse de Ségur, 1857)
    9. Green Eggs and Ham (Dr Seuss, 1960)
    10. The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank, 1947)

    Lucie Cauwe – LU cie & co blog, Belgium
    1. Ernest et Célestine ont perdu Siméon (Gabrielle Vincent, 1981)
    2. Laura, le terre-neuve d’Alice (Philippe Dumas, 1976)
    3. Dix petits amis déménagent (Mitsumasa Anno, 1981)
    4. Biboundé (Michel Gay, 1982)
    5. Le géant de Zeralda (Tomi Ungerer, 1967)
    6. Le bonhomme de neige (Raymond Briggs, 1978)
    7. Ranelot et Bufolet (Arnold Lobel, 1970)
    8. Winnie l’ourson (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    9. Histoires de loups (Mario Ramos, 2018)
    10. Petit musée (Alain Le Saux and Grégoire Solotareff, 2000)

    Jana Čeňková – Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Czech Republic
    1. Tři zlaté klíče (Petr Sís, 1994)
    2. Through the Magic Gate (Jiří Trnka, 1962)
    3. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    4. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    5. Nekonečný příběh (Michael Ende, 1979)
    6. The Adventures of Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi, 1883)
    7. Mikulášovy prázdniny (René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé, 1961)
    8. Moominland Midwinter (Tove Jansson, 1957)
    9. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    10. Mary Poppins (PL Travers, 1934)

    Karen Chandler – Professor of African-American and American literature, United States
    1. Zeely (Virginia Hamilton and Symeon Shimin, 1967)
    2. The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (Langston Hughes, 1932)
    3. Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane (Carole Boston Weatherford and Sean Qualls, 2008)
    4. The Heart Calls Home (Joyce Hansen, 1999)
    5. A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K Le Guin, 1968)
    6. All in a Day (Mitsumasa Anno, 1990)
    7. Carver: A Life in Poems (Marilyn Nelson, 1997)
    8. Swimmy (Leo Lionni, 1963)
    9. George and Martha (James Marshall, 1972)
    10. Howl’s Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones, 1986)

    Minjie Chen – Metadata Librarian for the Cotsen Children’s Library, Princeton University, China
    1. Xiyouji / Journey to the West (Wu Cheng’en, 1592)
    2. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (JK Rowling, 1999)
    4. Fairy Tales (Hans Christian Andersen, 1827)
    5. Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window (Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, 1981)
    6. Doraemon (Fujio Fujiko, 1969)
    7. The BFG (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1982)
    8. Emil i Lönneberga (Astrid Lindgren, 1963)
    9. Vitya Maleev at School and at Home (Nikolay Nosov, 1951)
    10. Little Soldier Chang Ka-tse (Xu Guangyao, 1964)

    Micaela Chirif – Children’s author, Peru
    1. The Snow Queen (Hans Christian Andersen, 1844)
    2. Hey Diddle Diddle and Baby Bunting (Randolph Caldecott, 1882)
    3. Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Warja Lavater, 1965)
    4. El pozo de los ratones / Kimichime i oztotlkali (Pascuala Corona, 2016)
    5. Stone Soup (Marcia Brown, 1947)
    6. The Slant Book (Peter Newell, 1910)
    7. The Dead Bird (Margaret Wise Brown, 1938)
    8. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    9. Jumping Beans (Judith Martin and Remy Charlip, 1969)
    10. Roland (Nelly Stéphane and André François, 1958)

    Liudmila Chizhova – Executive director of the Children’s Book Council of Russia, Russia
    1. Two Captains (Veniamin Kaverin, 1944)
    2. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    3. Emil of Lönneberga (Astrid Lindgren, 1963)
    4. Trudno byt bogom (Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky, 2019)
    5. Oblachnii polk (Eduard Verkin, 2019)
    6. Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift, 1726)
    7. Dyadya Styopa (Sergey Mikhalkov, 1939)
    8. Malchik so shpagoy (Vladislav Krapivin, 1976)
    9. The Tales of Mother Goose (Charles Perrault, 1697)
    10. Fairy Tales (Hans Christian Andersen, 1827)

    Choi Hyun-kyoung – Noran Sangsang Books, South Korea
    1. Magic Candies (Heena Baek, 2017)
    2. Wave (Suzy Lee, 2008)
    3. Pippi Långstrump (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    4. Aldo (John Burningham, 1991)
    5. The Little Match Girl (Hans Christian Andersen, 1845)
    6. Comet in Moominland (Tove Jansson, 1946)
    7. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    8. The Cat That Lived a Million Times (Yoko Sano, 1977)
    9. I Talk Like a River (Jordan Scott and Sydney Smith, 2020)
    10. Sister Mongsil (Kwon Jeong-saeng, 1984)

    Ngnaoussi Elongué Cédric Christian – Muna Kalati, Cameroon
    1. Les rois de la sape (Christian Epanya, 2014)
    2. Le taxi brousse de Papa Diop (Christian Epanya, 2015)
    3. Kirikou et la sorcière (Michel Ocelot, 2001)
    4. M’pessa et Jengu la déesse des Eaux: Contes du Cameroun (Yves Junior Ngangue, 2011)
    5. Modibo Keita, le premier président du Mali (Kidi Bebey, 2010)
    6. Le petit garçon qui pleurait tout le temps (Armelle Touko and Oswald Seulle, 2022)
    7. Madoulina (Joël Eboueme Bognomo, 1999)
    8. Le roi Njoya: Un génial inventeur (Alain Serge Dzotap, 2015)
    9. Afrique Le droit à l’enfance: Libertés, droits, justice (Jessica Reuss-Nliba, 2009)
    10. Samuel Eto’o: Birth of a Champion (Samuel Eto’o and Joelle Esso, 2013)

    Sandra Cisneros – Writer and activist, Mexico
    1. Fairy Tales (Hans Christian Andersen, 1827)
    2. Lilus Kikus (Elena Poniatowska, 1954)
    3. The Little House (Virginia Lee Burton, 1942)
    4. My Shoes and I (René Colato Lainez and Fabricio Vanden Broeck, 2010)
    5. The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes (DuBose Heyward and Marjorie Flack, 1939)
    6. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith, 1943)
    7. Maud Martha (Gwendolyn Brooks, 1953)
    8. Mi proprio cuartito (Amada Irma Pérez and Maya Christina González, 2000)
    9. For a Girl Becoming (Joy Harjo and Mercedes McDonald, 2009)
    10. Last Stop on Market Street (Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson, 2015)

    Lillian Crawford – Freelance film and culture writer, United Kingdom
    1. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    2. The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien, 1954)
    3. The Railway Children (Edith Nesbit, 1906)
    4. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1868)
    5. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    6. Watership Down (Richard Adams, 1972)
    7. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    8. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    9. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter, 1902)
    10. Ballet Shoes (Noel Streatfeild, 1936)

    Beverley D’Silva – Writer and journalist, United Kingdom
    1. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    2. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    3. The Owl Service (Alan Garner, 1967)
    4. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    5. Madeline (Ludwig Bemelmans, 1939)
    6. Skellig (David Almond, 1998)
    7. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    8. Green Eggs and Ham (Dr Seuss, 1960)
    9. The Illustrated Mum (Jacqueline Wilson and Nick Sharratt, 1999)
    10. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)

    Zahira Dadashova – Deputy director, Azerbaijan Republican Children’s Library named after F Kocharli, Azerbaijan
    1. Əvvəl Zaman İçində (Zahirə Cabir, 2022)
    2. “Diribaş Qızlar” klubu (Reyhan Yusifqızı, 2022)
    3. Melisa (Sevinc Nuruqızı, 2018)
    4. Kralın kreslosu (Zahid Xəlil, 2018)
    5. Cəsur Ayı (Solmaz Amanova)
    6. Leqendı o drevnem Baku (Razia Raqimzade)
    7. Xarıbülbül əfsanələri (Humayun Sevinc, 2022)
    8. Kirpimin yolu (Yuliya Kərimova)
    9. Dostum Mimi (Reyhan Yusifqızı and Səbinə Vəzirova, 2017)
    10. Lalənin qəribə ev tapşırığı (Fatimə Alxas Yusifova and Gökçe Odabaşı)

    Reza Dalvand – Author and illustrator, Iran
    1. Ace (Payam Ebrahimi and Reza Dalvand, 2018)
    2. The Shadow Elephant (Nadine Robert and Valerio Vidali, 2019)
    3. Der grosse Schneemann (Seyyed Ali Shojaie and Elahe Tahetian, 2013)
    4. The Promise (Nicola Davies and Laura Carlin, 2013)
    5. What Could That Be? (Reza Dalvand, 2020)
    6. O Fim da Fila (Marcelo Pimentel, 2011)
    7. Zahhak (Atousa Salehi and Nooshin Safakhoo)
    8. Darvaze Mordegan (Hamidreza Shahabadi)
    9. My Annoying Brother (Babak Saberi and Mahsa Hedayati, 2020)
    10. The Boxer (Hassan Mousavi, 2017)

    Evy Danckers – Children’s author, Belgium
    1. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    2. Geen meiden aan boord (Johan Ballegeer, 1986)
    3. Pluk van de Petteflet (Annie MG Schmidt and Fiep Westendorp, 1971)
    4. Kruistocht in spijkerbroek (Thea Beckman, 1973)
    5. Duet met valse noten (Bart Moeyaert, 1983)
    6. Pippi Langkous (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    7. Verliefd? Hoezo? (Miep Diekmann, 1993)
    8. Ik en mijn zusje Klara en onze kater Kasimir (Dimiter Inkiow, 1979)
    9. Het meisje dat de zon niet zag (Gerda van Cleemput and André Sollie, 1982)
    10. The Demon Dentist (David Walliams and Tony Ross, 2013)

    Sandy Days – Graduate in MA Writing for Young People, United States
    1. The Only Road (Alexandra Diaz, 2016)
    2. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Mildred D Taylor, 1977)
    3. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    4. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (JK Rowling, 1999)
    5. Santiago’s Road Home (Alexandra Diaz, 2019)
    6. The Girl with the Silver Eyes (Willo Davis Roberts, 1980)
    7. Panky and William (Nancy Saxon, 1983)
    8. Between Shades of Gray (Ruta Sepetys, 2011)
    9. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Benjamin Alire Sáenz, 2012)
    10. The Book of Mistakes (Corinna Luyken, 2017)

    Eva Devos – Ledereen Leest, Belgium
    1. Ente, Tod und Tulpe (Wolf Erlbruch, 2007)
    2. Lampje and the Children of the Sea (Annet Schaap, 2017)
    3. A Bit Lost (Chris Haughton, 2013)
    4. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (Kate DiCamillo and Bagram Ibatoulline, 2006)
    5. De Schepping (Bart Moeyaert and Wolf Erlbruch, 2003)
    6. Schaap met laarsjes (Maritgen Matter and Jan Jutte, 2002)
    7. Gus’s Garage (Leo Timmers, 2016)
    8. Rood Rood Roodkapje (Edward van de Vendel and Isabelle Vandenabeele, 2003)
    9. Pluk van de Petteflet (Annie MG Schmidt and Fiep Westendorp, 1971)
    10. Alla vi barn i Bullerbyn (Astrid Lindgren, 1947)

    Kristien Dieltiens – Author and illustrator, Belgium
    1. Ronja de roversdochter (Astrid Lindgren, 1981)
    2. De gebroeders Leeuwenhart (Astrid Lindgren, 1973)
    3. Het kleine huis in het grote bos (Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1932)
    4. De Heksen (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1983)
    5. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    6. Klein wit visje (Guido van Genechten, 2004)
    7. De eend, de dood en de tulp (Wolf Erlbruch, 2007)
    8. The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew It Was None of His Business (Werner Holzwarth and Wolf Erlbruch, 1989)
    9. Dubbele Lotje (Erich Kästner, 1949)
    10. Mio, mijn Mio (Astrid Lindgren, 1954)

    Pam Dix – Chair, IBBY UK, United Kingdom
    1. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    2. Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, 1947)
    3. The Red Tree (Shaun Tan, 2001)
    4. Shackleton’s Journey (William Grill, 2014)
    5. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    6. Pig Heart Boy (Malorie Blackman, 1997)
    7. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, 1989)
    8. Monkey and Me (Emily Gravett, 2007)
    9. Gorilla (Anthony Browne, 1983)
    10. I Have a Dream (Martin Luther King and Kadir Nelson, 1973)

    Lorena Echkart – Youth librarian and secretary of IBBY Finland, Finland
    1. Mur, eli karhu (Kaisa Happonen and Anne Vasko, 2016)
    2. Haluan hattuni takaisin (Jon Klassen, 2011)
    3. Kiven vartija (David Eddings, 1982)
    4. Villiin luontoon (Erin Hunter, 2003)
    5. Masi Tulppa: Pääsy kielletty! (Jari Mäkipää, 2017)
    6. Muumipappa ja meri (Tove Jansson, 1965)
    7. Hobitti (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    8. Ronja, ryövärintytär (Astrid Lindgren, 1981)
    9. Salamavaras (Rick Riordan, 2005)
    10. Nevermoor: Morriganin koetukset (Jessica Townsend, 2017)

    Elisabeth Eggenberger – Swiss Institute for Children’s and Youth Media, Switzerland
    1. Heidis Lehr-und Wanderjahre (Johanna Spyri, 1880)
    2. Die Schwarzen Brüder (Lisa Tetzner, 1940)
    3. Schellen-Ursli (Selina Chönz and Alois Carigiet, 1945)
    4. Little Bird (Germano Zullo and Albertine, 2010)
    5. Chanson d’hiver (Etienne Delessert, 1988)
    6. Das grosse Buch: Geschichten für Kinder (Franz Hohler and Nikolaus Heidelbach, 2009)
    7. Le Pantin noir (S Corinna Bille and Hannes Binder, 2014)
    8. When the World Was New (Jürg Schubiger and Rotraut Susanne Berner, 1996)
    9. Johanna im Zug (Kathrin Schärer, 2009)
    10. Alle Jahre wieder saust der Presslufthammer nieder (Jörg Müller, 1977)

    Kathryn Erskine – Children’s author, United States
    1. The Book Thief (Markus Zusak, 2006)
    2. The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster, 1961)
    3. Persepolis: The Story of an Iranian Childhood (Marjane Satrapi, 2003)
    4. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Young Readers’ Edition (William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, 2015)
    5. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    6. Feed (MT Anderson, 2002)
    7. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    8. Inkheart (Cornelia Funke, 2003)
    9. Because of Winn-Dixie (Kate DiCamillo, 2000)
    10. Long Way Down (Jason Reynolds, 2017)

    Cseri Anna Flóra – Petőfi Cultural Agency and Petőfi Literary Fund, Hungary
    1. Otthon (Rofusz Kinga, 2018)
    2. A Kóbor Szálló (Eszter T Molnár, 2018)
    3. Volt egyszer egy (Máté Angi, 2010)
    4. A csodálatos szemüveg (Finy Petra, 2011)
    5. Mit keresett Jakab az ágy alatt? (Dániel András, 2014)
    6. Sárkány a lépcsőházban (Nádori Lídia, 2008)
    7. Mese-levelek (Örkény István, 1999)
    8. Csomótündér (Dóra Gimesi and Adrienn Gyöngyösi, 2013)
    9. Valentine: Two Love Stories (Tibor Kárpáti, 2013)
    10. A Sötétben Látó Tündér (László Bagossy and Mari Takács, 2009)

    Robert Freeman – Audience editor, BBC, United Kingdom
    1. The Mouse and His Child (Russell Hoban, 1967)
    2. My Family and Other Animals (Gerald Durrell, 1956)
    3. Cider with Rosie (Laurie Lee, 1959)
    4. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
    5. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    6. A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K Le Guin, 1968)
    7. Beaver Towers (Nigel Hinton, 1980)
    8. The Owl Service (Alan Garner, 1967)
    9. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    10. Coraline (Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, 2002)

    Dahlia Garcia – Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
    1. Out of My Mind (Sharon M Draper, 2010)
    2. Other Words for Home (Jasmine Warga, 2019)
    3. How I Became a Ghost (Tim Tingle, 2013)
    4. Melissa (Alex Gino, 2015)
    5. Ghost Boys (Jewell Parker Rhodes, 2018)
    6. They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid’s Poems (David Bowles, 2018)
    7. Number the Stars (Lois Lowry, 1989)
    8. The Books That Devoured My Father (Afonso Cruz, 2010)
    9. A Mango-Shaped Space (Wendy Mass, 2003)
    10. Inside Out and Back Again (Thanhhà Lại, 2011)

    Hannah Gold – Children’s author, United Kingdom
    1. Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (Robert C O’Brien, 1971)
    2. Tom’s Midnight Garden (Philippa Pearce, 1958)
    3. The Animals of Farthing Wood (Colin Dann, 1979)
    4. Heartstopper (Alice Oseman, 2016)
    5. Boy, Everywhere (AM Dassu, 2020)
    6. Rooftoppers (Katherine Rundell, 2013)
    7. A Kind of Spark (Elle McNicoll, 2020)
    8. Rocket Says Look Up! (Nathan Bryon and Dapo Adeola, 2019)
    9. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle, 1969)
    10. War Horse (Michael Morpurgo, 1982)

    Marsha Gomes-Mckie – Founder of Caribbean Books Foundation, Trinidad and Tobago
    1. Midnight Robber (Nalo Hopkinson, 2000)
    2. The Lonely Londoners (Sam Selvon, 1956)
    3. All Over Again (A-dZiko Simba Gegele, 2013)
    4. The Nutmeg Princess (Richardo Keens-Douglas, 1992)
    5. A Long Walk to Water (Linda Sue Park, 2010)
    6. Miguel Street (VS Naipaul, 1959)
    7. It’s Trevor Noah: Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (Adapted for Young Readers) (Trevor Noah, 2019)
    8. The Protector’s Pledge (Danielle YC McClean and Lorena Soriano, 2015)
    9. Life Doesn’t Frighten Me (Maya Angelou and Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1993)
    10. Hair Love (Matthew A Cherry and Vashti Harrison, 2019)

    Alla Gordiienko – President of IBBY Ukraine, Ukraine
    1. Taiemnytsia Kozatskoho skarbu (Andrii Kokotiukha and Anatolii Vasylenko, 2011)
    2. Toreadory z Vasiukivky (Vsevolod Nestayko, 2022)
    3. V Kraini Soniachnykh Zaichykiv (Vsevolod Nestayko, 1994)
    4. Dzhury kozaka Shvaiky (Volodymyr Rutkivskyi, 2012)
    5. Chudove Chudovysko (Sashko Dermanskyi, 2006)
    6. Nezvychaini pryhody Ali v kraiini Nedoladii (Galyna Malyk, 1989)
    7. Zaichykova knyzhechka (Ivan Andrusiak, 2018)
    8. Domovychok z palitroiu (Maryna Pavlenko, 2007)
    9. Minimaks, kyshenkovyi drakon, abo den bez batkiv (Anatolii Kostetskyi, 1987)
    10. Taiemne tovarystvo boiahuziv (Lesya Voronyna, 2019)

    Candy Gourlay – Filipino children’s author based in London, United Kingdom
    1. So Much! (Trish Cooke and Helen Oxenbury, 1994)
    2. Here Lies Arthur (Philip Reeve, 2007)
    3. The White Darkness (Geraldine McCaughrean, 2005)
    4. Rules of Summer (Shaun Tan, 2013)
    5. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (Dr Seuss, 1957)
    6. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (Kate DiCamillo and Bagram Ibatoulline, 2006)
    7. Holes (Louis Sachar, 1998)
    8. Millions (Frank Cottrell Boyce, 2004)
    9. Bud, Not Buddy (Christopher Paul Curtis, 1999)
    10. Storyteller: Tales from the Arabian Nights (Anushka Ravishankar, 2011)

    Eve Green – Rights executive, Australia
    1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    2. Tashi (Anna Fienberg, Barbara Fienberg and Kim Gamble, 1995)
    3. The Field Guide (Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, 2003)
    4. The BFG (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1982)
    5. Fablehaven (Brandon Mull, 2006)
    6. Meet Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (May Gibbs, 2013)
    7. The Gypsy Crown (Kate Forsyth, 2007)
    8. Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers (Mairi Hedderwick, 1985)
    9. Rowan of Rin (Emily Rodda, 1993)
    10. The Silver Brumby (Elyne Mitchell, 1958)

    Rose Green – Freelance editor, United States
    1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (JK Rowling, 1999)
    2. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    3. A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle, 1962)
    4. Howl’s Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones, 1986)
    5. Cosmic (Frank Cottrell Boyce, 2008)
    6. Flipped (Wendelin Van Draanen, 2001)
    7. The Ghosts (Antonia Barber, 1969)
    8. Gatty’s Tale (Kevin Crossley-Holland, 2006)
    9. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    10. Grandfather’s Journey (Allen Say, 1993)

    Matthew Grenby – Newcastle University, United Kingdom
    1. The Stone Book Quartet (Alan Garner, 1976)
    2. Clever Bill (William Nicholson, 1926)
    3. The Tiger Who Came to Tea (Judith Kerr, 1968)
    4. Kidnapped (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886)
    5. The Wouldbegoods (Edith Nesbit, 1901)
    6. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    7. Tom’s Midnight Garden (Philippa Pearce, 1958)
    8. Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book (Unknown, published by Mary Cooper, 1744)
    9. Mistress Masham’s Repose (TH White, 1946)
    10. The Judge: An Untrue Tale (Harve Zemach and Margot Zemach, 1969)

    Giorgia Grilli – University of Bologna, Italy
    1. Le Avventure di Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi, 1883)
    2. The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest (Felix Salten, 1923)
    3. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (JM Barrie, 1906)
    4. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    5. Skellig (David Almond, 1998)
    6. Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, 1947)
    7. Ente, Tod und Tulpe (Wolf Erlbruch, 2007)
    8. Mary Poppins (PL Travers, 1934)
    9. The Jungle Book (Rudyard Kipling, 1894)
    10. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911)

    Elisabeth Gruner – Professor of Children’s Literature, University of Richmond, United States
    1. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
    2. The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats, 1962)
    3. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    4. The Arrival (Shaun Tan, 2006)
    5. Through the Looking-Glass (Lewis Carroll, 1871)
    6. Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson, 2014)
    7. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    8. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Grace Lin, 2009)
    9. The Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett, 2003)
    10. The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster, 1961)

    Dr. Blanka Grzegorczyk – Lecturer, University of Cambridge and Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
    1. Noughts and Crosses (Malorie Blackman, 2001)
    2. Nation (Terry Pratchett, 2008)
    3. Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie, 1990)
    4. Ghost Boys (Jewell Parker Rhodes, 2018)
    5. The Arrival (Shaun Tan, 2006)
    6. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Mildred D Taylor, 1977)
    7. Coram Boy (Jamila Gavin, 2000)
    8. MC Higgins, the Great (Virginia Hamilton, 1974)
    9. A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K Le Guin, 1968)
    10. The Giving Tree (Shel Silverstein, 1964)

    Maria J Guarda – Author and illustrator, Chile
    1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle, 1969)
    2. Julián Is a Mermaid (Jessica Love, 2018)
    3. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, 1989)
    4. The Gruffalo (Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, 1999)
    5. Aunt Amelia (Rebecca Cobb, 2013)
    6. Wave (Suzy Lee, 2008)
    7. When Sadness Comes to Call (Eva Eland, 2018)
    8. Oh No, George! (Chris Haughton, 2012)
    9. Mi lista de envidias (Irene Bostelmann and Catalina Silva, 2014)
    10. Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, 1947)

    Amaia Hennebutte – Children’s author and president of Galtzagorri Elkartea, the Basque Branch of IBBY, Spain
    1. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, 1989)
    2. Vom kleinen Maulwurf, der wissen wollte, wer ihm auf den Kopf gemacht hat (Werner Holzwarth and Wolf Erlbruch, 1989)
    3. Swimmy (Leo Lionni, 1963)
    4. Rosie’s Walk (Pat Hutchins, 1968)
    5. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    6. Revolting Rhymes (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1982)
    7. Iholdi (Mariasun Landa and Asun Balzola, 1988)
    8. Begi-niniaren poemak (Juan Kruz Igerabide, 1992)
    9. Pippi Langstrump (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    10. Kensuke’s Kingdom (Michael Morpurgo, 1999)

    Theo Heras – IBBY Canada, Canada
    1. The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats, 1962)
    2. Jacob Have I Loved (Katherine Paterson, 1980)
    3. The Story of Ferdinand (Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, 1936)
    4. Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, 1947)
    5. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
    6. A Chance Child (Jill Paton Walsh, 1978)
    7. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    8. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    9. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    10. Madeline (Ludwig Bemelmans, 1939)

    Jake Hope – Awards executive for Yoto Carnegie Medals, United Kingdom
    1. The Tulip Touch (Anne Fine, 1996)
    2. Mighty Fizz Chilla (Philip Ridley, 2002)
    3. Heathrow Nights (Jan Mark, 2000)
    4. Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key (Jack Gantos, 1998)
    5. Boy, Everywhere (AM Dassu, 2021)
    6. The Boy at the Back of the Class (Onjali Q Raúf, 2018)
    7. High-Rise Mystery (Sharna Jackson, 2019)
    8. Diamonds (Armin Greder, 2020)
    9. Meanwhile (Jason Shiga, 2010)
    10. Banana (Ed Vere, 2007)

    Jennifer Horan – Chair of CILIP Youth Libraries Group, United Kingdom
    1. October, October (Katya Balen and Angela Harding, 2020)
    2. Millions (Frank Cottrell Boyce, 2004)
    3. Rooftoppers (Katherine Rundell, 2013)
    4. The Boy Who Sailed the Ocean in an Armchair (Lara Williamson, 2015)
    5. Wolves (Emily Gravett, 2005)
    6. There’s a Bear on My Chair (Ross Collins, 2015)
    7. One (Sarah Crossan, 2015)
    8. Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks (Jason Reynolds, 2019)
    9. A Kind of Spark (Elle McNicoll, 2020)
    10. The Undefeated (Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson, 2019)

    Huynh Kim Lien – Picture book illustrator, Vietnam
    1. Flotsam (David Wiesner, 2006)
    2. Duck, Death and the Tulip (Wolf Erlbruch, 2007)
    3. The Lion and the Mouse (Jerry Pinkney, 2009)
    4. Black Dog (Levi Pinfold, 2011)
    5. Rules of Summer (Shaun Tan, 2013)
    6. Lost and Found: Three (Shaun Tan, 2011)
    7. Mr Tiger Goes Wild (Peter Brown, 2013)
    8. The Wanderer (Peter van den Ende, 2019)
    9. Notturni, piraterie e allunaggi (Gianni De Conno, 2018)
    10. The Fate of Fausto (Oliver Jeffers, 2019)

    Andrea Immel – Cotsen Children’s Library, Princeton University, United States
    1. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    2. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    3. Fairy Tales (Hans Christian Andersen, 1827)
    4. Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883)
    5. The Tale of Samuel Whiskers (Beatrix Potter, 1908)
    6. The Tombs of Atuan (Ursula K Le Guin, 1970)
    7. The Midnight Folk (John Masefield, 1927)
    8. Moominsummer Madness (Tove Jansson, 1954)
    9. Telephone Tales (Gianni Rodari, 1962)
    10. Hail to Mail (Samuil Marshak, 1927)

    Katrín Lilja Jónsdóttir – Chairman of IBBY Iceland, editor-in-chief of Lestrarklefinn, Iceland
    1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    2. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    3. Skrímslaerjur (Áslaug Jónsdóttui, Rakel Helmsdal and Kalle Güettler, 2012)
    4. Greppikló (Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, 1999)
    5. This is Betsy / Emma Tvärtemot (Gunilla Wolde, 1974)
    6. Bróðir minn ljónshjarta (Astrid Lindgren, 1973)
    7. Palli var einn í heiminum (Jens Sigsgaard, 1942)
    8. Þar sem óhemjurnar eru (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    9. Kollhnís (Arndís Þórarinsdóttir, 2022)
    10. Skrímslið kemur (Patrick Ness, 2011)

    Angela Joy – Children’s author, United States
    1. Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson, 2014)
    2. A Single Shard (Linda Sue Park, 2001)
    3. Paperboy (Vince Vawter, 2013)
    4. The Inquisitor’s Tale (Adam Gidwitz, 2016)
    5. The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy (Jeanne Birdsall, 2005)
    6. Okay for Now (Gary D Schmidt, 2011)
    7. El Deafo (Cece Bell, 2014)
    8. Where the Sidewalk Ends (Shel Silverstein, 1974)
    9. The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats, 1962)
    10. James and the Giant Peach (Roald Dahl, 1961)

    Jim Kay – Illustrator, United Kingdom
    1. Cars and Trucks and Things that Go (Richard Scarry, 1974)
    2. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    3. The Children of Green Knowe (Lucy M Boston, 1954)
    4. Fungus the Bogeyman (Raymond Briggs, 1977)
    5. The Arrival (Shaun Tan, 2006)
    6. Amazon Adventure (Willard Price, 1949)
    7. Beegu (Alexis Deacon, 2003)
    8. Charlotte Sometimes (Penelope Farmer, 1969)
    9. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
    10. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)

    Nahid Kazemi – Author and illustrator, Canada
    1. The Little Black Fish (Samad Behrangi, 1969)
    2. A Lion in Paris (Beatrice Alemagna, 2006)
    3. On a Magical Do-Nothing Day (Beatrice Alemagna, 2016)
    4. The Little Flower King (Květa Pacovská, 1992)
    5. The Sun is Yellow (Květa Pacovská, 2012)
    6. Alphabet (Květa Pacovská, 2011)
    7. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle, 1969)
    8. Duck, Death and the Tulip (Wolf Erlbruch, 2007)
    9. The Miracle of the Bears (Wolf Erlbruch, 1999)
    10. Mrs Meyer, the Bird (Wolf Erlbruch, 1995)

    Aya Khalil – Children’s author, United States
    1. Your Name is a Song (Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow and Luisa Uribe, 2020)
    2. Lailah’s Lunchbox: A Ramadan Story (Reem Faruqi and Lea Lyon, 2015)
    3. In My Mosque (MO Yuksel and Hatem Aly, 2021)
    4. Not Quite Snow White (Ashley Franklin and Ebony Glenn, 2019)
    5. Halal Hot Dogs (Susannah Aziz and Parwinder Singh, 2021)
    6. Moon’s Ramadan (Natasha Khan Kazi, 2023)
    7. Zahra’s Blessing: A Ramadan Story (Shirin Shamsi and Manal Mirza, 2022)
    8. Hana’s Hundreds of Hijabs (Razeena Omar Gutta and Manal Mirza, 2022)
    9. The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family (Ibtihaj Muhammad and SK Ali and Hatem Aly, 2019)
    10. Together We Ride (Valerie Bolling and Kaylani Juanita, 2022)

    Hanada Kharma – Reader and critic, Palestinian Territories
    1. Thunderbird: Book One (Sonia Nimr, 2017)
    2. When the Sky Rained Fish (Sonia Nimr)
    3. Wondrous Journeys to Strange Lands (Sonia Nimr, 2013)
    4. A Story That Begins and Ends with Imagination (Sonia Nimr, 2015)
    5. The Blue Door (Sonia Nimr and Ra’ouf al-Kray, 2018)
    6. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle, 1969)
    7. Dr Seuss’s Book of Animals (Dr Seuss, 2018)
    8. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    9. Folk og røvere i Kardemomme by (Thorbjørn Egner, 1955)
    10. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)

    Asadjon Khodjaev – Director, Agency of Information and Mass Communications Uzbekistan, president of IBBY Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan
    1. Shum bola (Gafur Gulоm, 1936)
    2. Le avventure di Cipollino (Gianni Rodari, 1951)
    3. The Little Humpbacked Horse (Pyotr Yershov, 1834)
    4. Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883)
    5. Karlsson-on-the-Roof (Astrid Lindgren, 1955)
    6. The Mysterious Island (Jules Verne, 1875)
    7. Town Musicians of Bremen (Brothers Grimm, 1819)
    8. The Snow Queen (Hans Christian Andersen, 1844)
    9. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain, 1876)
    10. Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift, 1726)

    Jarlath Killeen – Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
    1. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    2. The Railway Children (Edith Nesbit, 1906)
    3. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911)
    4. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    5. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    6. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1868)
    7. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    8. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884)
    9. Tom’s Midnight Garden (Philippa Pearce, 1958)
    10. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)

    Gülşah Özdemir Koryürek – Writer and co-founder of Sifirdan Publishing House, Turkey
    1. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    2. Zackarina und der Sandwolf (Åsa Lind, 2002)
    3. Momo (Michael Ende, 1973)
    4. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    5. Phileas’s Fortune: A Story about Self-Expression (Agnès de Lestrade, 2009)
    6. The Giving Tree (Shel Silverstein, 1964)
    7. Not Just Another Princess Story (Sheri Radford and Qin Leng, 2014)
    8. Şimdiki Çocuklar Harika (Aziz Nesin, 1967)
    9. Üç Şiir (Nâzım Hikmet and Sedat Girgin, 2016)
    10. The Enemy: A Book About Peace (Davide Calì and Serge Bloch, 2007)

    Shereen Kreidieh – Manager, Asala Publishers, Lebanon
    1. When You Get Angry! (Dania Zad-ElSaadi, 2013)
    2. The Black Dot (Walid Taher, 2009)
    3. Why Don’t I Like Falafel? (Mariam Tarhini, 2018)
    4. When the Whale Sneezes (Mariam Tarhini, 2017)
    5. Who Will Take the Wool Sweater? (Zahraa Brataa and Maya Majdalani, 2018)
    6. The Story of the Courgette (Samah Idris)
    7. The Tanbouri Shoes (Fatima Sharaf Al-Deen and Nadine Sidani, 2008)
    8. When the Whale Sneezes (Mariam Tarhini, 2017)
    9. The Black Dot (Walid Taher, 2009)
    10. When You Get Angry! (Dania Zad-ElSaadi, 2013)

    Hana Križanová – BIBIANA, International House of Art for Children, Slovakia
    1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    2. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    3. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    4. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (L Frank Baum, 1900)
    5. Osmijankove rozprávky (Krista Bendová, 1972)
    6. Best Word Book Ever (Richard Scarry, 1963)
    7. Staré grécke báje a povesti (Eduard Petiška, 1958)
    8. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    9. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    10. The Moomins and the Great Flood (Tove Jansson, 1945)

    Michaela Kukovičová – Illustrator, Czech Republic
    1. Maxipes Fík (Rudolf Čechura and Jiří Šalamoun, 2011)
    2. Fimfárum (Jan Werich, 1963)
    3. Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce (Josef Čapek, 1929)
    4. Praštěné pohádky (Ludvík Aškenazy, 1965)
    5. Dětská encyklopedie (Bohumil Říha and Vladimír Fuka, 1959)
    6. Zázračná slunečnice (Bohumír Štéger, 1972)
    7. Wolf! (Sara Fanelli, 1997)
    8. Sailor och Pekka (Jockum Nordström, 2003)
    9. The Passport (Saul Steinberg, 1976)
    10. Les rhumes (André François, 2011)

    Clara Kumagai – Author, Ireland
    1. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    2. American Born Chinese (Gene Luen Yang and Lark Pien, 2006)
    3. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    4. Night of the Milky Way Railway (Kenji Miyazawa, 1934)
    5. A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K Le Guin, 1968)
    6. The Arrival (Shaun Tan, 2006)
    7. Noughts and Crosses (Malorie Blackman, 2001)
    8. Tuck Everlasting (Natalie Babbitt, 1975)
    9. We Are Water Protectors (Carole Lindstrom and Michaela Goade, 2020)
    10. I Want My Hat Back (Jon Klassen, 2011)

    Ellen Kushner – Writer, United States
    1. A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K Le Guin, 1968)
    2. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911)
    3. Peter and Wendy (JM Barrie, 1911)
    4. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    5. Howl’s Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones, 1986)
    6. Half Magic (Edward Eager, 1954)
    7. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (Joan Aiken, 1962)
    8. Les malheurs de Sophie (Comtesse de Ségur, 1857)
    9. Bedtime for Frances (Russell Hoban, 1960)
    10. Utzli-Gutzli (Avraham Shlonsky, 1966)

    Rebecca Laurence – Editor, BBC Culture, United Kingdom
    1. Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, 1947)
    2. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
    3. A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle, 1962)
    4. The Tiger Who Came to Tea (Judith Kerr, 1968)
    5. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    6. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
    7. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    8. The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams, 1921)
    9. A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K Le Guin, 1968)
    10. Watership Down (Richard Adams, 1972)

    Ben Lawrence – Journalist and critic, Daily Telegraph, United Kingdom
    1. Tom’s Midnight Garden (Philippa Pearce, 1958)
    2. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
    3. The Story of the Amulet (Edith Nesbit, 1906)
    4. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    5. Break in the Sun (Bernard Ashley, 1980)
    6. Noughts and Crosses (Malorie Blackman, 2001)
    7. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908)
    8. Comet in Moominland (Tove Jansson, 1946)
    9. The Owl Service (Alan Garner, 1967)
    10. The Nature of the Beast (Janni Howker, 1985)

    Angela Lebedeva – Executive director of the Raising Readers Association, Russia
    1. Annie Lumsden, The Girl from the Sea (David Almond and Beatrice Alemagna, 2020)
    2. Kaskadyorki idut do kontsa (Anna Anisimova, 2022)
    3. Bone Music (David Almond, 2021)
    4. Novoye chyernoye palto (Maria Boteva, 2022)
    5. Olimpiada (Lyubava Gornitskaya, 2022)
    6. Kvartetnye skazki (Nina Dashevskaya and Yulia Sidneva, 2022)
    7. La zuppa Lepron (Giovanna Zoboli and Mariachiara di Giorgio, 2022)
    8. Sol (Aleksandra Zaitseva, 2022)
    9. Manolito Gafotas (Elvira Lindo, 1994)
    10. O Kamilu, który patrzy rękami (Tomasz Małkowski and Joanna Rusinek, 2017)

    MG Leonard – Author, United Kingdom
    1. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911)
    2. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908)
    3. The Twits (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1980)
    4. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    5. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    6. My Family and Other Animals (Gerald Durrell, 1956)
    7. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    8. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1869)
    9. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
    10. The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien, 1954)

    Karin Lesnik-Oberstein – Professor of Critical Theory and Director of CIRCL and its M(Res) in Children’s Literature, University of Reading, United Kingdom
    1. Little House in the Big Woods (Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1932)
    2. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    3. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1868)
    4. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    5. Jip en Janneke (Annie MG Schmidt and Fiep Westendorp, 1953)
    6. The Railway Children (Edith Nesbit, 1906)
    7. Dogger (Shirley Hughes, 1977)
    8. The Eagle of the Ninth (Rosemary Sutcliff, 1954)
    9. Swallows and Amazons (Arthur Ransome, 1930)
    10. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Mildred D Taylor, 1976)

    Marianne Levy – Writer and arts critic, United Kingdom
    1. The Explorer (Katherine Rundell, 2017)
    2. Mog the Forgetful Cat (Judith Kerr, 1970)
    3. Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire (Andy Stanton and David Tazzyman, 2007)
    4. I Want My Hat Back (Jon Klassen, 2011)
    5. Heidi (Johanna Spyri, 1880)
    6. The Bad Beginning (Lemony Snicket, 1999)
    7. Coram Boy (Jamila Gavin, 2000)
    8. Owl Babies (Martin Waddell, 1992)
    9. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Judith Kerr, 1971)
    10. Oi Frog! (Kes Gray and Jim Field, 2014)

    Christine Lötscher – University of Zurich, Switzerland
    1. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    2. Heidis Lehr- und Wanderjahre (Johanna Spyri, 1880)
    3. Moominvalley in November (Tove Jansson, 1970)
    4. Ronja, rövardotter (Astrid Lindgren, 1981)
    5. Das grosse Buch: Geschichten für Kinder (Franz Hohler and Nikolaus Heidelbach, 2009)
    6. Wir pfeifen auf den Gurkenkönig (Christine Nöstlinger and Werner Maurer, 1972)
    7. The Adventures of Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi, 1883)
    8. Die unendliche Geschichte (Michael Ende, 1979)
    9. Everything on a Waffle (Polly Horvath, 2001)
    10. Die rote Zora (Kurt Held, 1941)

    Pierre-Emmanuel Lyet – Children’s author and illustrator, France
    1. Michka (Marie Colmont and Feodor Rojankovsky, 1941)
    2. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    3. Porculus (Arnold Lobel, 1969)
    4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (JK Rowling, 2000)
    5. Biggest Word Book Ever (Richard Scarry, 1981)
    6. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    7. Zagazoo (Quentin Blake, 1998)
    8. The Three Robbers (Tomi Ungerer, 1961)
    9. The Gruffalo (Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, 1999)
    10. Red Rackham’s Treasure (Hergé, 1943)

    Dorian Lynskey – Journalist and author, United Kingdom
    1. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    2. Animal Farm (George Orwell, 1945)
    3. The Bad Beginning (Lemony Snicket, 1999)
    4. In the Night Kitchen (Maurice Sendak, 1970)
    5. When the Wind Blows (Raymond Briggs, 1982)
    6. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
    7. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
    8. Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale (Mo Willems, 2004)
    9. The Giving Tree (Shel Silverstein, 1964)
    10. Goodnight, Mr Tom (Michelle Magorian, 1981)

    Fiona Macdonald – Deputy editor, BBC Culture, United Kingdom
    1. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
    2. The Lorax (Dr Seuss, 1972)
    3. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    4. A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle, 1962)
    5. The Man Who Was Magic (Paul Gallico, 1966)
    6. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    7. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908)
    8. Watership Down (Richard Adams, 1972)
    9. The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams, 1921)
    10. The Great Dog Bottom Swap (Peter Bently and Mei Matsuoka, 2009)

    Irma Malatsidze – Children’s author, Georgia
    1. Pippi Langstrump (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    2. Mary Poppins (PL Travers, 1934)
    3. Le avventure di Cipollino (Gianni Rodari, 1951)
    4. Gelsomino nel paese dei bugiardi (Gianni Rodari, 1958)
    5. The Snow Queen (Hans Christian Andersen, 1844)
    6. Karlsson-on-the-Roof (Astrid Lindgren, 1955)
    7. Mio, mijn Mio (Astrid Lindgren, 1954)
    8. The Adventures of a Boy Named Piccolo (Archil Sulakauri, 1980)
    9. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    10. Zolotoj Kljuchik, Ili Prikljuchenija Buratino (Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy, 1936)

    Radek Malý – Charles University, FSV, Czech Republic
    1. Moominvalley in November (Tove Jansson, 1970)
    2. Pippi Langstrump (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    3. Můj medvěd Flóra (Daisy Mrázková, 1973)
    4. Povídání o pejskovi a kočičce (Josef Čapek, 1929)
    5. Momo (Michael Ende, 1973)
    6. Krabat (Otfried Preussler, 1971)
    7. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    8. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884)
    9. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    10. The Adventures of Dunno and his Friends (Nikolay Nosov, 1954)

    Vratislav Manak – Writer and lecturer, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Czech Republic
    1. Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Brothers Grimm, 1812)
    2. Fairy Tales (Hans Christian Andersen, 1827)
    3. One Thousand and One Nights (Anonymous / folk)
    4. The Six Bullerby Children (Astrid Lindgren, 1947)
    5. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    6. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    7. The Complete Fables (Aesop, -564)
    8. The Adventures of Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi, 1883)
    9. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (L Frank Baum, 1900)
    10. Krabat (Otfried Preussler, 1971)

    Leelo Märjamaa – Translator and publisher of Draakon & Kuu publishing, Estonia
    1. Moominland Midwinter (Tove Jansson, 1957)
    2. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    3. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    4. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    5. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    6. Liten och stark (Ulf Stark, 2007)
    7. Coraline (Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, 2002)
    8. The BFG (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1982)
    9. Sandvargen (Åsa Lind, 2002)
    10. Sideways Stories from Wayside School (Louis Sachar, 1978)

    James Marriott – Columnist, United Kingdom
    1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    2. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    3. Lulu and the Chocolate Wedding (Posy Simmonds, 1990)
    4. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    5. Swallows and Amazons (Arthur Ransome, 1930)
    6. A Bear Called Paddington (Michael Bond, 1958)
    7. Dogger (Shirley Hughes, 1977)
    8. The Tiger Who Came to Tea (Judith Kerr, 1968)
    9. The Phoenix and the Carpet (Edith Nesbit, 1904)
    10. Professional Crocodile (Giovanna Zoboli, 2017)

    Siya Masuku – Writer, illustrator and independent publisher of graphic novels in South African indigenous languages, South Africa
    1. Mosidi (Lorato Trok, 2020)
    2. UDaisy Omangalisayo (Nozizwe Herero, 2015)
    3. Isitsha Samakhekhe Masiwe (Nozizwe Herero, 2016)
    4. Isiphiwo sikaMogau (Lorato Trok and Shadrack Munene, 2017)
    5. All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa (Richard Conyngham, 2022)
    6. Coloureds (The Trantraal Brothers, 2010)
    7. Crossroads (Koni Benson, The Trantraal Brothers and Ashley E Marais, 2021)
    8. Maus (Art Spiegelman, 1980)
    9. The Art of Edena (Moebius, 2018)
    10. Joyama (Daniel Isles, 2022)

    Raquel Mestre – Literary agent and editorial consultant for children and young adult books, Portugal
    1. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle, 1969)
    3. As Time Passes (Isabel Minhós Martins and Madalena Matoso, 2016)
    4. M come il mare (Joanna Concejo, 2020)
    5. Che cos’è un bambino? (Beatrice Alemagna, 2008)
    6. Malena Ballena (Davide Calì and Sonja Bougaeva, 2010)
    7. Los sueños de Helena (Eduardo Galeano and Isidro Ferrer, 2014)
    8. Du bleu au bleu (Katsumi Komagata, 2011)
    9. A Sereia e os Gigantes (Catarina Sobral, 2015)
    10. Daqui ninguém passa (Isabel Minhós Martins and Bernardo P Carvalho, 2014)

    Isabel Minhós Martins – Publisher, Portugal
    1. A grande questão (Wolf Erlbruch, 2005)
    2. Once Upon a Time There Was and Will Be so Much More (Johanna Schaible, 2021)
    3. Little White Riding Hood (Bruno Munari, 1999)
    4. Les trois brigands (Tomi Ungerer, 1961)
    5. Pequeno Azul e Pequeno Amarelo (Leo Lionni, 1959)
    6. Topsy Turvy World (Atak, 2009)
    7. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    8. The Giving Tree (Shel Silverstein, 1964)
    9. Alice no País das Maravilhas (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    10. Farwest (Peter Elliott and Kitty Crowther, 2019)

    Hadil Miqdadi – Children’s author, editor, executive director of Dar Al Yasmine for Publishing and Distribution, Jordan
    1. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    2. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (Kate DiCamillo and Bagram Ibatoulline, 2006)
    3. The Bird in Me Flies (Sara Lundberg, 2017)
    4. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    5. The Pain and the Great One (Judy Blume, 1974)
    6. The Boys Are Laughing (Zakaria Tamer and Adly Rizkallah)
    7. Pojken, flickan och muren (Ulf Stark and Anna Höglund, 2011)
    8. The Suitcase (Chris Naylor-Ballesteros, 2019)
    9. Code Name: Butterfly (Ahlam Bsharat, 2009)
    10. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)

    Inga Mitunevičiūtė – Chair of IBBY Lithuania, Lithuania
    1. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    2. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    3. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    4. Moominpappa at Sea (Tove Jansson, 1965)
    5. A Bear Called Paddington (Michael Bond, 1958)
    6. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    7. Because of Winn-Dixie (Kate DiCamillo, 2000)
    8. Fairy Tales (Hans Christian Andersen, 1827)
    9. The Tales of Mother Goose (Charles Perrault, 1697)
    10. The Adventures of Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi, 1883)

    Hugh Montgomery – Senior journalist, BBC Culture, United Kingdom
    1. The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson, 2005)
    2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    3. Redwall (Brian Jacques, 1986)
    4. The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear (Edward Lear, 1895)
    5. Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie, 1990)
    6. Moominland Midwinter (Tove Jansson, 1957)
    7. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    8. Stig of the Dump (Clive King, 1963)
    9. I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith, 1948)
    10. The Animals of Farthing Wood (Colin Dann, 1979)

    Bernie Munoz – Children’s author and academic, Chile
    1. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Judith Kerr, 1971)
    2. Papelucho (Marcela Paz, 1947)
    3. El vaso de leche (Manuel Rojas, 2021)
    4. Cuentos de amor, locura y de muerte (Horacio Quiroga, 1917)
    5. Mujercitas (Louisa May Alcott, 1868)
    6. La última niebla (Maria Luisa Bombal, 1935)
    7. Rayuela (Julio Cortázar, 1963)
    8. A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K Le Guin, 1968)
    9. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    10. Papaito Piernas Largas (Jean Webster, 1912)

    Marie-Aude Murail – Children’s author and laureate the Hans Christian Andersen Prize 2023, France
    1. Tintin in Tibet (Hergé, 1958)
    2. Les Mille et Une Nuits (Anonymous / folk)
    3. Les Contes de ma mère l’Oye (Charles Perrault, 1697)
    4. Le petit prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    5. Fifi Brindacier (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    6. Astérix et Cléopâtre (René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, 1965)
    7. A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens, 1843)
    8. Les trois brigands (Tomi Ungerer, 1961)
    9. Arsène Lupin, gentleman cambrioleur (Maurice Leblanc, 1907)
    10. Le petit Lord Fauntleroy (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1886)

    Innosanto Nagara – Author, A is for Activist, United States
    1. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    2. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    3. Nobody is Perfick (Bernard Waber, 1971)
    4. The Bully of Barkham Street (Mary Stolz, 1963)
    5. We March (Shane W Evans, 2012)
    6. Rad American Women A-Z: Rebels, Trailblazers, and Visionaries who Shaped Our History . . . and Our Future! (Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl, 2015)
    7. Young, Gifted and Black: Meet 52 Black Heroes from Past and Present (Jamia Wilson and Andrea Pippins, 2018)
    8. My Colors, My World (Maya Christina González, 2007)
    9. Two White Rabbits (Jairo Buitrago and Rafael Yockteng, 2015)
    10. Tar Beach (Faith Ringgold, 1991)

    Emilia Nazir – Secretary general of INABBY, Indonesia
    1. Rules of Summer (Shaun Tan, 2013)
    2. Shadow (Suzy Lee, 2010)
    3. The Story of Ferdinand (Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, 1936)
    4. The Giving Tree (Shel Silverstein, 1964)
    5. Koggiri Ajeosiwa 100 Gaieui Mulbangul (Noh In-Kyung, 2012)
    6. Big Cat, Little Cat (Elisha Cooper, 2017)
    7. Good Night, Gorilla (Peggy Rathmann, 1994)
    8. Imaginary Fred (Eoin Colfer and Oliver Jeffers, 2015)
    9. A Chair for My Mother (Vera B Williams, 1982)
    10. The Little Match Girl (Hans Christian Andersen, 1845)

    Vassiliki Nevrokopli – Children’s books author, Greece
    1. The Children’s Illustrated Bible (Retold by Selina Shirley Hastings and Eric Thomas, 1993)
    2. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    3. Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Richard Bach and Russell Munson, 1970)
    4. Momo (Michael Ende, 1973)
    5. The Giving Tree (Shel Silverstein, 1964)
    6. The Missing Piece Meets the Big O (Shel Silverstein, 1981)
    7. The Strange Love of the White Horse and the Poplar Tree (Christos Boulotis and Photini Stephanidi, 2011)
    8. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852)

    Tine Nielsen – Babel-Bridge Literary Agency, Denmark
    1. The Neverending Story (Michael Ende, 1979)
    2. The Brothers Lionheart (Astrid Lindgren, 1973)
    3. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    5. The Cat in the Hat (Dr Seuss, 1957)
    6. Moominland Midwinter (Tove Jansson, 1957)
    7. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    8. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, 1989)
    9. Ug: Boy Genius of the Stone Age (Raymond Briggs, 2001)
    10. Frühlings-Wimmelbuch (Rotraut Susanne Berner, 2004)

    Sonia Nimr – Birzeit University, Ramallah, Palestine, Palestinian Territories
    1. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    2. Something Else (Kathryn Cave and Chris Riddell, 1994)
    3. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    4. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle, 1969)
    5. The Butter Battle Book (Dr Seuss, 1984)
    6. The Sneetches and Other Stories (Dr Seuss, 1961)
    7. Yertle the Turtle (Dr Seuss, 1958)
    8. Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! (Dr Seuss, 1975)

    Viive Noor – Illustrator, graphic artist and curator, Estonia
    1. Muinasjutte (Brothers Grimm, 1812)
    2. A csodafurulya (Kolozsvári Grandpierre Emil, 1961)
    3. The Yellow Woodpecker (Monteiro Lobato, 1937)
    4. Väike Tjorven, Pootsman ja Mooses (Astrid Lindgren, 1964)
    5. Bill Bergson and the White Rose Rescue (Astrid Lindgren, 1953)
    6. Härra Huu (Hannu Mäkelä, 1973)
    7. Moominland Midwinter (Tove Jansson, 1957)
    8. Viplala lood (Annie MG Schmidt, 1957)
    9. Kolm musketäri (Alexandre Dumas, 1844)
    10. Järve kiri (Piret Raud, 2023)

    Mark O’Neill – Reader, United Kingdom
    1. I Want My Hat Back (Jon Klassen, 2011)
    2. Elidor (Alan Garner, 1965)
    3. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
    4. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    5. The Children of Green Knowe (Lucy M Boston, 1954)
    6. Five Children and It (Edith Nesbit, 1902)
    7. A Bear Called Paddington (Michael Bond, 1958)
    8. Just William (Richmal Crompton, 1922)
    9. Biggles: The Camels are Coming (WE Johns, 1932)
    10. Moominland Midwinter (Tove Jansson, 1957)

    Agi Ofner – Children’s author and illustrator, Austria
    1. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    2. Gips (Anna Woltz, 2015)
    3. Ad Ktze Ha-Moshav / Where The Village Road Ends (Amalia Rosenblum, 2006)
    4. Tonje Glimmerdal (Maria Parr, 2009)
    5. Watership Down (Richard Adams, 1972)
    6. Everywhere With You (Carlie Sorosiak and Devon Holzwarth, 2022)
    7. Du Iz Tak? (Carson Ellis, 2016)
    8. Momo (Michael Ende, 1973)
    9. Le voleur de poule (Béatrice Rodriguez, 2005)
    10. The Wolf, the Duck and the Mouse (Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen, 2017)

    Akoss Ofori-Mensah – Children’s book publisher, Ghana
    1. Sosu’s Call (Meshack Asare, 1997)
    2. The Cross Drums (Meshack Asare, 2008)
    3. Fly, Eagle, Fly! (Christopher Gregorowski and Niki Daly, 2000)
    4. Gizo-Gizo! A Tale from the Zongo Lagoon (Emily Williamson and the pupils of Hassaniyya Quranic School, 2016)
    5. Mimi Mystery (Michael David Ambatchew and Edmund Opare, 2012)
    6. Animal Village (Nelda LaTeef, 2017)
    7. How Stories Spread Around the World (Rogério Andrade Barbosa and Graca Lima, 2018)
    8. The Herd Boy (Niki Daly, 2012)
    9. Hi, Zoleka! (Gcina Mhlope and Elizabeth Pulles, 1998)
    10. Chipo and the Bird on the Hill (Meshack Asare, 1984)

    Martin Panchaud – Artist and author, Switzerland
    1. The Frog and Three Other Stories (Anne Van Der Essen and Etienne Delessert, 1979)
    2. Moomin: La comete arrive (Tove Jansson, 1946)
    3. Trouve Chaffy (Jamie Smart, 2010)
    4. L’arbre sans fin (Claude Ponti, 1992)
    5. Les trois brigands (Tomi Ungerer, 1961)
    6. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle, 1969)
    7. Globis Weltreise (Robert Lips, 1935)
    8. Papa Moll, Band 5, gelb (Edith Oppenheim-Jonas, 1997)
    9. Un livre (Hervé Tullet, 2010)
    10. Max et les maximonstres (Maurice Sendak, 1963)

    Christopher Paolini – Author, United States
    1. A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K Le Guin, 1968)
    2. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    3. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    4. David and the Phoenix (Edward Ormondroyd, 1957)
    5. Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher (Bruce Coville, 1991)
    6. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911)
    7. Mossflower (Brian Jacques, 1989)
    8. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    9. Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling, 1902)
    10. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)

    Nii Ayikwei Parkes – Writer, Ghana
    1. Kwajo and the Brassman’s Secret (Meshack Asare, 1982)
    2. The Arrival (Shaun Tan, 2006)
    3. Jip and Janneke (Annie MG Schmidt and Fiep Westendorp, 1953)
    4. Heidi (Johanna Spyri, 1880)
    5. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle, 1969)
    6. Owls See Clearly at Night: A Michif Alphabet (Julie Flett, 2010)
    7. One (Kathryn Otoshi, 2008)
    8. Beautiful Oops! (Barney Saltzberg, 2010)
    9. Hair Love (Matthew A Cherry and Vashti Harrison, 2019)
    10. Little Red Hood (Marjolaine Leray, 2009)

    Joseph Peelo – Librarian, Kylemore College JCSP, Ireland
    1. Once (Morris Gleitzman, 2005)
    2. Cirque Du Freak: A Living Nightmare (Darren Shan, 2000)
    3. Under the Hawthorn Tree (Marita Conlon-McKenna, 1990)
    4. The Outsiders (SE Hinton, 1967)
    5. Heartstopper (Alice Oseman, 2018)
    6. Tuesday (David Wiesner, 1991)
    7. Stoner and Spaz (Ron Koertge, 2002)
    8. Moonrise (Sarah Crossan, 2017)
    9. A Monster Calls (Patrick Ness, 2011)
    10. Bruised (Siobhán Parkinson, 2011)

    Enrique Pérez Díaz – Children’s author, researcher, Cuban Books Observatory, Cuba
    1. Agnes Cecilia (María Gripe, 1978)
    2. The Eyes of the Amaryllis (Natalie Babbitt, 1977)
    3. Ascolta il mio cuore (Bianca Pitzorno, 1991)
    4. O abraço (Lygia Bojunga Nunes, 1996)
    5. Holes (Louis Sachar, 1998)
    6. El libro de Jim-Valor (Mathieu Lindon, 1986)
    7. El lunático y su hermana libertad (Paul Kropp, 1988)
    8. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    9. Pobby and Dingan (Ben Rice, 2000)
    10. Bridge to Terabithia (Katherine Paterson, 1977)

    Jaana Pesonen – Lecturer, University of Helsinki, Finland
    1. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    3. The Moomins and the Great Flood (Tove Jansson, 1945)
    4. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    5. Watership Down (Richard Adams, 1972)
    6. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    7. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    8. The Ugly Duckling (Hans Christian Andersen, 1843)
    9. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    10. Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson, 2014)

    Phung Nguyen Quang – Picture book author and illustrator, Vietnam
    1. Rules of Summer (Shaun Tan, 2013)
    2. Duck, Death and the Tulip (Wolf Erlbruch, 2007)
    3. Black Dog (Levi Pinfold, 2011)
    4. Like a Giant (Marc Daniau and Yvan Duque, 2021)
    5. Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (Dr Seuss, 1990)
    6. The Bear and the Moon (Matthew Burgess and Catia Chien, 2020)
    7. Mr Tiger Goes Wild (Peter Brown, 2013)
    8. The Fate of Fausto (Oliver Jeffers, 2019)
    9. Everyone’s Awake (Colin Meloy and Shawn Harris, 2020)
    10. The Undefeated (Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson, 2019)

    Lyudmila Polikarpova – National Library of Ukraine for Children, Ukraine
    1. U nashim raii na zemli (Taras Shevchenko, 1849)
    2. 100 Kazok: Volume 2 (Various, 2016)
    3. Dyvovyzhni pryhody v lisovii shkoli (Vsevolod Nestayko, 2015)
    4. Nezvychaini pryhody Ali v kraiini Nedoladii (Halyna Malyk, 1989)
    5. Med dlia Mamy (Ivan Malkovych and Sofiya Us, 2007)
    6. Kramnychka titonky Malvy (Sashko Dermanskyi, 2014)
    7. Slon Gudzyk i peliustkovi chary (Lesya Voronyna, 2022)
    8. Visim dniv z zhyttia burunduka (Ivan Andrusiak, 2012)
    9. Nezrozumili (Serhyi Hrydin, 2016)
    10. Dzhury Kozaka Shvaiky (Volodymyr Rutkivskyi, 2022)

    Peeriya Pongsarigun – ThaiBBY Secretary-General, Thailand
    1. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle, 1969)
    3. The Cat in the Hat (Dr Seuss, 1957)
    4. Corduroy (Don Freeman, 1968)
    5. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
    6. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    7. Green Eggs and Ham (Dr Seuss, 1960)
    8. Guess How Much I Love You (Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram, 1994)
    9. Walk Two Moons (Sharon Creech, 1994)
    10. Julián Is a Mermaid (Jessica Love, 2018)

    Joan Portell – Author and teacher at the University of Girona, Spain
    1. El zoo d’en Pitus (Sebastià Sorribas, 1966)
    2. Som les tres bessones (Mercè Company González and Roser Capdevila i Valls, 1999)
    3. Rovelló (Josep Vallverdú, 1969)
    4. La lluna d’en Joan (Carme Solé Vendrell, 2014)
    5. El Petit Polzet (Charles Perrault and Pere Formiguera, 2019)
    6. Allà on viuen els monstres (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    7. Pippi Calcesllargues (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    8. Història de Babar, el petit elefant (Jean de Brunhoff, 1931)
    9. En Jim Botó i en Lluc el maquinista (Michael Ende, 1960)
    10. El petit Blau i el petit Groc (Leo Lionni, 1959)

    Cath Pound – Culture journalist, United Kingdom
    1. Finn Family Moomintroll (Tove Jansson, 1948)
    2. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    3. Asterix and the Banquet (René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, 1963)
    4. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    5. Madeline (Ludwig Bemelmans, 1939)
    6. Little Nicholas (René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé, 1959)
    7. The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster, 1961)
    8. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    9. The Blue Lotus (Hergé, 1935)
    10. The Young Visiters (Daisy Ashford, 1919)

    Quek Hong Shin – Children’s book author and illustrator, Singapore
    1. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    2. The Snowman (Raymond Briggs, 1978)
    3. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    4. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
    5. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    6. Harold and the Purple Crayon (Crockett Johnson, 1955)
    7. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    8. The Ugly Duckling (Hans Christian Andersen, 1843)
    9. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    10. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)

    Miriam Quick – Journalist and author, United Kingdom
    1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    2. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    3. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    4. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    5. The Tiger Who Came to Tea (Judith Kerr, 1968)
    6. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter, 1902)
    7. The BFG (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1982)
    8. Stig of the Dump (Clive King, 1963)
    9. Black Beauty (Anna Sewell, 1877)
    10. I Want My Hat Back (Jon Klassen, 2011)

    Brenda Randolph – Librarian and outreach director, Center for African Studies at Howard University, United States
    1. Galimoto (Karen Lynn Williams and Catherine Stock, 1990)
    2. Journey to Jo’burg (Beverley Naidoo and Eric Velásquez, 1986)
    3. The Mzungu Boy (Meja Mwangi, 1995)
    4. The Day Gogo Went to Vote (Elinor Batezat Sisulu and Sharon Wilson, 1996)
    5. Sundiata: Lion King of Mali (David Wisniewski, 1992)
    6. Rise of the Golden Cobra (Henry T Aubin, 2007)
    7. Bintou’s Braids (Sylviane A Diouf and Shane Evans, 2001)
    8. Grandad Mandela (Zindzi Mandela, Zazi Mandela, Zondwa Mandela, Ziwalene Mandela and Sean Qualls, 2018)
    9. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, 2009)
    10. Sulwe (Lupita Nyong’o and Vashti Harrison, 2019)

    Rachel Rendall – Parent, book lover, and teaching assistant, United Kingdom
    1. The Adventures of the Black Hand Gang (Hans Jürgen Press, 1965)
    2. The Secret in Miranda’s Wardrobe (Sheila Greenwald, 1977)
    3. Veronica at the Wells (Lorna Hill, 1951)
    4. Meet the Garden Gang (Jayne Fisher, 1995)
    5. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    6. Five Run Away Together (Enid Blyton, 1944)
    7. The Borrowers (Mary Norton, 1952)
    8. The BFG (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1982)
    9. The Silver Chair (CS Lewis, 1953)
    10. Mr Bump (Roger Hargreaves, 1971)

    Kimberley Reynolds – Emerita Professor of Children’s Literature, Newcastle University, United Kingdom
    1. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    2. Ballet Shoes (Noel Streatfeild, 1936)
    3. A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle, 1962)
    4. Peepo! (Janet Ahlberg and Allan Ahlberg, 1981)
    5. Tom’s Midnight Garden (Philippa Pearce, 1958)
    6. The Stone Book Quartet (Alan Garner, 1976)
    7. The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith, 1992)
    8. Dogger (Shirley Hughes, 1977)
    9. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1868)
    10. The Arrival (Shaun Tan, 2006)

    David Robson – Science writer and author, United Kingdom
    1. The Magician’s Nephew (CS Lewis, 1955)
    2. Two Weeks with the Queen (Morris Gleitzman, 1990)
    3. The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (Penelope Lively, 1973)
    4. Howl’s Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones, 1986)
    5. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    6. The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark (Jill Tomlinson, 1968)
    7. The Hundred and One Dalmatians (Dodie Smith, 1956)
    8. The Tale of Mr Jeremy Fisher (Beatrix Potter, 1906)
    9. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (Alan Garner, 1960)
    10. Il giornalino di Gian Burrasca (Vamba, 1912)

    Theresa Rogers – Professor of Education, University of British Columbia, Canada
    1. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
    2. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    3. The Cat in the Hat (Dr Seuss, 1957)
    4. The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats, 1962)
    5. Harold and the Purple Crayon (Crockett Johnson, 1955)
    6. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (Bill Martin Jr, John Archambault and Lois Ehlert, 1989)
    7. The Story of Ferdinand (Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, 1936)
    8. Where the Sidewalk Ends (Shel Silverstein, 1974)
    9. The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith, 1989)
    10. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)

    Eleanor Marie Rose – Bonnier Books, United Kingdom
    1. The Colour Monster (Anna Llenas, 2015)
    2. Egyptology (Dugald Steer, 2004)
    3. Gigantosaurus (Jonny Duddle, 2015)
    4. The Colour Monster Goes to School (Anna Llenas, 2018)
    5. Dragonology (Dugald Steer, 2003)
    6. The Pirates Next Door (Jonny Duddle, 2011)
    7. I Say Oh, You say No (John Kane, 2023)
    8. Paper World: Human Body (The Templar Company Ltd and Gail Armstrong, 2023)
    9. Five Little Chicks (Lily Murray and Holly Surplice, 2022)
    10. The Incredible Pop-up Mummy (Moira Butterfield, Phung Nguyen Quang and Huynh Thi Kim Lien, 2022)

    Maribel Rufino Rodríguez – Coordinator at the Bunko Xochimilco, IBBY México, Mexico
    1. La peor señora del mundo (Francisco Hinojosa, 1992)
    2. Padres padrísimos, SA (Jaime Alfonso Sandoval, 2005)
    3. La ciudad de las esfinges (Jaime Alfonso Sandoval, 2009)
    4. La armónica (Antonio Malpica and Aitana Carrasco, 2008)
    5. Ella trae la lluvia (Martha Riva Palacio Obón, 2016)
    6. Tigres de la otra noche (María García Esperón and Alejandro Magallanes, 2006)
    7. Diente de león (María Baranda and Isidro R Esquivel, 2012)
    8. Lunática (Martha Riva Palacio Obón and Mercè López, 2015)
    9. El libro de las cochinadas (Julieta Fierro and Juan Tonda, 2005)
    10. Fernanda y los mundos secretos (Ricardo Chávez Castañeda, 2004)

    Anthony de Sa – Administrator, writer and poet, India
    1. The Curious Case of the Nandikote Nawab (Tino de Sa, 2021)
    2. The Secret Seven (Enid Blyton, 1949)
    3. Just William (Richmal Crompton, 1922)
    4. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    5. Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883)
    6. Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe, 1719)
    7. Black Beauty (Anna Sewell, 1877)
    8. Heidi (Johanna Spyri, 1880)
    9. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    10. Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift, 1726)

    Lisa Sainsbury – University of Roehampton, United Kingdom
    1. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter, 1902)
    2. Watership Down (Richard Adams, 1972)
    3. Comet in Moominland (Tove Jansson, 1946)
    4. The Story of Tracy Beaker (Jacqueline Wilson, 1991)
    5. Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson, 2014)
    6. Tales from the Inner City (Shaun Tan, 2008)
    7. Charlotte Sometimes (Penelope Farmer, 1969)
    8. Tuck Everlasting (Natalie Babbitt, 1975)
    9. The Snowman (Raymond Briggs, 1978)
    10. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)

    Rafael Salmerón – Children’s and young adult author, Spain
    1. Le petit prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    2. Palabras de caramelo (Gonzalo Moure, 2002)
    3. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    5. Memorias de una gallina (Concha López Narváez and Juan Ramón Alonso Díaz-Toledo, 2005)
    6. Ojo de Nube (Ricardo Gómez, 2006)
    7. Barro de Medellín (Alfredo Gómez Cerdá and Xan López Domínguez, 2008)
    8. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    9. Algunos niños, tres perros y más cosas (Juan Farias, 1980)
    10. Elmer (David McKee, 1989)

    Dr Ira Saxena – Child psychologist, author and children’s book critic, India
    1. The Panchatantra (Anonymous / folk, -200)
    2. Idgah (Munshi Premchand, 1938)
    3. Kabuliwala (Rabindranath Tagore, 1892)
    4. The Kaziranga Trail (Arup Kumar Dutta, 1978)
    5. The Man-Eater of Malgudi (RK Narayan, 1961)
    6. The Angry River (Ruskin Bond, 1993)
    7. Adventure Before Midnight (Nilima Sinha, 1987)
    8. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)

    Stefanie Scharnberg – Children’s books illustrator, Germany
    1. Inkheart (Cornelia Funke, 2003)
    2. In einem tiefen, dunklen Wald (Paul Maar, 1999)
    3. Grandpa’s Angel (Jutta Bauer, 2003)
    4. The Princess Knight (Cornelia Funke and Kerstin Meyer, 2001)
    5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (JK Rowling, 1999)
    6. Dealing with Dragons (Patricia C Wrede, 1990)
    7. No Kiss for Mother (Tomi Ungerer, 1973)
    8. Where is the Cake? (Thé Tjong-Khing, 2004)
    9. Eloise (Kay Thompson, 1955)
    10. Bridget and the Grey Wolves (Pija Lindenbaum, 2000)

    Monica Sever – London Borough of Hackney Libraries, United Kingdom
    1. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    2. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (L Frank Baum, 1900)
    3. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    4. Kim (Rudyard Kipling, 1901)
    5. Not Now, Bernard (David McKee, 1980)
    6. Horton Hears a Who! (Dr Seuss, 1954)
    7. Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy (Lynley Dodd, 1983)
    8. Kidnapped (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886)
    9. Rocket Says Look Up! (Nathan Bryon and Dapo Adeola, 2019)
    10. Wed Wabbit (Lissa Evans, 2017)

    Zohar Shavit – Professor Emerita at the School for Cultural Studies, editor of children’s books series, Israel
    1. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
    2. Danny, the Champion of the World (Roald Dahl, 1975)
    3. Peter and Wendy (JM Barrie, 1911)
    4. Pippi Långstrump (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    5. The Paul Street Boys (Ferenc Molnár, 1906)
    6. Wir pfeifen auf den Gurkenkönig (Christine Nöstlinger and Werner Maurer, 1972)
    7. Mary Poppins (PL Travers, 1934)
    8. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    9. Ramona and Her Father (Beverly Cleary, 1977)
    10. Le petit Nicolas (René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé, 1959)

    Amanda Shaw – Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing, Australia
    1. The Twits (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1980)
    2. George’s Marvellous Medicine (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1981)
    3. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (Judy Blume, 1970)
    4. Flat Stanley (Jeff Brown, 1964)
    5. Follow That Bus (Pat Hutchins, 1987)
    6. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    7. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ (Sue Townsend, 1982)
    8. Five on a Treasure Island (Enid Blyton, 1942)
    9. The Wind in the WIllows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908)
    10. The Secret of the Old Clock (Carolyn Keene, 1930)

    Dana Sheridan – Cotsen Children’s Library, Princeton University, United States
    1. The Rabbits (John Marsden and Shaun Tan, 1998)
    2. A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle, 1962)
    3. The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster, 1961)
    4. The Book of Mean People (Toni Morrison, Slade Morrison and Pascal Lemaître, 2002)
    5. Masquerade (Kit Willams, 1979)
    6. Julián Is a Mermaid (Jessica Love, 2018)
    7. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    8. Tar Beach (Faith Ringgold, 1991)
    9. Front Desk (Kelly Yang, 2018)
    10. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)

    Shim Hyang-Boon – Former president of IBBY Korea, South Korea
    1. Muscle Man and Fake Lady: The Lake (Jo Won-hee, 2022)
    2. Wanini the Green Lioness (Yi Hyeon and Oh Yun-hwa, 2015)
    3. I Am a Dog (Baek Heena, 2019)
    4. I’m a Lion (Kyung Hyewon)
    5. Dream of Becoming Water (Lucid Fall and Suzy Lee, 2020)
    6. Border (Gudol and Haerang, 2021)
    7. Who Am I? (Kim Hee-kyung, 2019)
    8. Just a Frog (Jang Hyun-Jung, 2020)
    9. It’s So Cool! (Kim Gyeong-deug, 2020)
    10. Hello! Alien (Park Yeon-cheol, 2019)

    Nilima Sinha – Author, President of Association of Writers and Illustrators for Children, India
    1. The Panchatantra (Anonymous / folk, -200)
    2. Five Go to Smuggler’s Top (Enid Blyton, 1945)
    3. Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883)
    4. Swami and Friends (RK Narayan, 1935)
    5. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    6. David Copperfield (Charles Dickens, 1850)
    7. Fairy Tales (Hans Christian Andersen, 1827)
    8. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    9. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    10. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)

    Chris Smith – Children’s author and broadcaster, United Kingdom
    1. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    2. The Island at the End of Everything (Kiran Millwood Hargrave, 2016)
    3. How to Train Your Dragon (Cressida Cowell, 2003)
    4. The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, 1982)
    5. Father Christmas (Raymond Briggs, 1973)
    6. High-Rise Mystery (Sharna Jackson, 2019)
    7. Five on a Treasure Island (Enid Blyton, 1942)
    8. Tilly and the Bookwanderers (Anna James, 2018)
    9. A Squash and a Squeeze (Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, 1993)
    10. The Brilliant World of Tom Gates (Liz Pichon, 2014)

    Petr Stančík – Children’s author, Czech Republic
    1. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    2. Záhada hlavolamu (Jaroslav Foglar, 1941)
    3. Die unendliche Geschichte (Michael Ende, 1979)
    4. Lichožrouti (Pavel Šrut, 2008)
    5. Velké putování Vlase a Brady (František Skála, 2007)
    6. Cesta slepých ptáků (Ludvík Souček, 1987)
    7. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    8. L’Île mystérieuse (Jules Verne, 1875)
    9. Broučci (Jan Karafiát, 1876)
    10. V sedmém nebi (Jiří Kolář, 1964)

    John Stephens – Emeritus Professor, Macquarie University, Australia
    1. The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman, 2008)
    2. Goldengrove (Jill Paton Walsh, 1972)
    3. The Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett, 2003)
    4. Charlotte Sometimes (Penelope Farmer, 1969)
    5. Tom’s Midnight Garden (Philippa Pearce, 1958)
    6. Tuesday (David Wiesner, 1991)
    7. Outside Over There (Maurice Sendak, 1981)
    8. The Red Shoe (Ursula Dubosarsky, 2006)
    9. Paper Towns (John Green, 2008)
    10. The Wreck of the Zephyr (Chris van Allsburg, 1983)

    Robin Stevens – Children’s author, United Kingdom
    1. Howl’s Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones, 1986)
    2. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler (EL Konigsburg, 1967)
    3. The Secret of Platform 13 (Eva Ibbotson, 1994)
    4. The Hundred and One Dalmatians (Dodie Smith, 1956)
    5. Finn Family Moomintroll (Tove Jansson, 1948)
    6. Noughts and Crosses (Malorie Blackman, 2001)
    7. White Boots (Noel Streatfeild, 1951)
    8. Ella Enchanted (Gail Carson Levine, 1997)
    9. A Kind of Spark (Elle McNicoll, 2020)
    10. High-Rise Mystery (Sharna Jackson, 2019)

    Ilze Stikāne – University of Latvia, Latvia
    1. Brāļi Lauvassirdis (Astrid Lindgren, 1973)
    2. Kaķīša dzirnavas (Kārlis Skalbe, 1913)
    3. Krāsainas pasakas (Imants Ziedonis, 1973)
    4. Sprīdītis (Anna Brigadere, 1903)
    5. Vilki velk malku (Janis Baltvilks and Anita Paegle, 2003)
    6. Lekšiņa un āriņa (Inese Zandere and Ūna Laukmane, 2002)
    7. Raibajā pasaulē (Pēters Brūveris and Ieva Maurīte, 2010)
    8. Princese Aurēlija un kokspoki (Mara Cielēna and Aleksejs Naumovs, 2011)
    9. Ente, Tod und Tulpe (Wolf Erlbruch, 2007)
    10. Ak, skaistā Panama (Janosch, 1978)

    Dusanka Stojakovic – Publisher, New Africa Books, South Africa
    1. The Adventures of Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi, 1883)
    2. Daddy-Long-Legs (Jean Webster, 1912)
    3. Farmer Duck (Martin Waddell and Helen Oxenbury, 1992)
    4. Zoo (Anthony Browne, 1992)
    5. Ouma Ruby’s Secret (Chris van Wyk and Anneliese Voigt-Peters, 2006)
    6. The Man with the Violin (Kathy Stinson and Dušan Petričić, 2013)
    7. Soweto Tea Party (Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang and Samantha van Riet, 2022)
    8. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911)
    9. The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams, 1921)
    10. The Giving Tree (Shel Silverstein, 1964)

    Cat Strawberry – Children’s book reviewer, United Kingdom
    1. The Patchwork Cat (Nicola Bayley and William Mayne, 1981)
    2. The Little Red Hen and the Grains of Wheat (Vera Southgate, 1966)
    3. Winter Story (Jill Barklem, 1980)
    4. Julius Zebra: Entangled with the Egyptians! (Gary Northfield, 2018)
    5. The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle (Beatrix Potter, 1905)
    6. Star of Nimrod (Graham Whitlock, 2021)
    7. I Want My Hat Back (Jon Klassen, 2011)
    8. Batpig: When Pigs Fly (Rob Harrell, 2021)
    9. The Midnight Fair (Gideon Sterer and Mariachiara Di Giorgio, 2021)
    10. The Frost Fair (Natasha Hastings, 2022)

    Kalpana Sunder – Journalist, India
    1. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
    2. Heidi (Johanna Spyri, 1880)
    3. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1868)
    4. Black Beauty (Anna Sewell, 1877)
    5. The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank, 1947)
    6. The Secret Island (Enid Blyton, 1938)
    7. The Magic Faraway Tree (Enid Blyton, 1943)
    8. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    9. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    10. What Katy Did (Susan Coolidge, 1872)

    Joe Sutliff Sanders – University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
    1. Emily of New Moon (LM Montgomery, 1923)
    2. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Mildred D Taylor, 1976)
    3. The Thief (Megan Whalen Turner, 1996)
    4. A New Year’s Reunion (Yu Li-Qiong and Zhu Cheng-Liang, 2011)
    5. Sal and Gabi Break the Universe (Carlos Hernandez, 2019)
    6. Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, 1947)
    7. Crongton Knights (Alex Wheatle, 2016)
    8. When You Trap a Tiger (Tae Keller, 2020)
    9. Michael Rosen’s Sad Book (Michael Rosen and Quentin Blake, 2004)
    10. This One Summer (Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki, 2014)

    Nikoletta Szekeres – Editor, critic and president of HUBBY, the Hungarian IBBY, Hungary
    1. The Arrival (Shaun Tan, 2006)
    2. Garmann’s Summer (Stian Hole, 2006)
    3. Les riches heures de Jacominus Gainsborough (Rébecca Dautremer, 2018)
    4. Arnica, The Duck Princess (Ervin Lázár and Jacqueline Molnár, 1981)
    5. Samu sejti (Tamás Tékiss, 2017)
    6. Milyen madár (Árpád Kollár, 2014)
    7. Momo (Michael Ende, 1973)
    8. Le petit Nicolas (René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé, 1959)
    9. The Little Man (Erich Kästner, 1963)
    10. The Death Book (Pernilla Stafelt, 1999)

    Nadia Terranova – Writer, Italy
    1. The Witches (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1983)
    2. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1868)
    3. Mary Poppins (PL Travers, 1934)
    4. Il giardino segreto (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911)
    5. Speciale Violante (Bianca Pitzorno, 1989)
    6. Violetta la timida (Giana Anguissola, 1963)
    7. Skellig (David Almond, 1998)
    8. Nel paese dei mostri selvaggi (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    9. Coraline (Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, 2002)
    10. Il giardino di mezzanotte (Philippa Pearce, 1958)

    Marcella Terrusi – Department of Quality Life Studies, University of Bologna, Italy
    1. Pippi Calzelunghe (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    2. The Adventures of Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi, 1883)
    3. Primavera (Rotraut Susanne Berner, 2004)
    4. Il palloncino rosso (Iela Mari, 1967)
    5. Oh, wie schön ist Panama: Die Geschichte, wie der kleine Tiger und der kleine Bär nach Panama reisen (Janosch, 1978)
    6. Poka et Mine au musée (Kitty Crowther, 2013)
    7. The Gruffalo (Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, 1999)
    8. Pimpa e l’orsacchiotto Gigetto (Francesco T Altan, 2021)
    9. Buon viaggio, piccolino! (Beatrice Alemagna, 2013)
    10. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, 1989)

    Leo Timmers – Picture book maker, Belgium
    1. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    2. Fish is Fish (Leo Lionni, 1970)
    3. Frog is Frightened (Max Velthuijs, 1994)
    4. The Three Robbers (Tomi Ungerer, 1961)
    5. Leonard (Wolf Erlbruch, 1991)
    6. Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (Mo Willems, 2003)
    7. Milo’s Hat Trick (Jon Agee, 2001)
    8. The Bear That Wasn’t (Frank Tashlin, 1946)
    9. Frog and Toad are Friends (Arnold Lobel, 1970)
    10. The Snowman (Raymond Briggs, 1978)

    Duncan Tonatiuh – Author and illustrator, United States
    1. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    2. Just a Minute!: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book (Yuyi Morales, 2003)
    3. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Grace Lin, 2009)
    4. El Deafo (Cece Bell, 2014)
    5. The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, 1997)
    6. Lampião & Lancelote (Fernando Vilela, 2006)
    7. Jaguar, “Corazón de la Montaña” (Ana Paula Ojeda and Juan Palomino, 2014)
    8. Me and My Cat? (Satoshi Kitamura, 1996)
    9. Macario (B Traven, 1950)
    10. It Jes’ Happened (Don Tate and R Gregory Christie, 2010)

    Ruzan Tonoyan – President of the Armenian National Section of IBBY, Armenia
    1. Fairy Tales by Hovhannes Tumanyan (Hovhannes Tumanyan, 1930)
    2. The Magic Buttons (Nouneh Sarkissian, 2015)
    3. The Blue Fox (Lilit Altunyan, 2016)
    4. Manyunya (Narine Abgaryan, 2010)
    5. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    6. Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    7. Bunny the Fourth (Yuri Sahakyan and Narine Gevorgyan, 2011)
    8. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    9. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    10. Fables (Khnko Aper)

    Margaretha Ullström – President of IBBY Sweden, PHD in Comparative Literature, Sweden
    1. Ronja, rövardotter (Astrid Lindgren, 1981)
    2. Pappa Långben (Jean Webster, 1912)
    3. Sotarpojken (Lisa Tetzner, 1940)
    4. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    5. Det osynliga barnet (Tove Jansson, 1962)
    6. Kejsarens nya kläder / The Emperor’s New Clothes (Hans Christian Andersen, 1837)
    7. Snäll (Gro Dahle and Svein Nyhus, 2002)
    8. Momo (Michael Ende, 1973)
    9. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    10. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)

    Teshabayeva Umida – Director of the National Library of Uzbekistan named after Alisher Navoi, Uzbekistan
    1. Shum bola (Gafur Gulоm, 1936)
    2. Le avventure di Cipollino (Gianni Rodari, 1951)
    3. White Bim Black Ear (Gavriil Troepolsky, 1971)
    4. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    5. Karlsson-on-the-Roof (Astrid Lindgren, 1955)
    6. In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant (Jules Verne, 1867)
    7. Town Musicians of Bremen (Brothers Grimm, 1819)
    8. The Snow Queen (Hans Christian Andersen, 1844)
    9. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain, 1876)
    10. Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift, 1726)

    Maryna Vardanian – Researcher in children’s literature, Kryvyi Rih Pedagogical University, Ukraine
    1. Zemlia svitliachkiv (Viktor Blyznets, 1979)
    2. Boh vohniu Trilogy (Olha Mak, 1955)
    3. Malyi Kobzar (Taras Shevchenko, 1840)
    4. Tyhrolovy (Ivan Bahrianyi, 1944)
    5. Fedko-Khalamydnyk (Volodymyr Vynnychenko, 1969)
    6. Tsar Plaksii i Loskoton (Vasyl Symonenko, 1982)
    7. Sontsebory (Ivan Smoliy, 1970)
    8. Chy Ziide Zavtra Sontse (Leonid Poltava, 1955)
    9. Pluto (Valentyna Vzdulska and Inna Chernyak, 2016)
    10. Volya – The Will (Vyacheslav Bugaiov, Denys Fadeev, Oleksandr Filypovych and Oleksiy Bondarenko, 2017)

    Rahul Verma – Deputy editor, The Week Junior, United Kingdom
    1. Noughts and Crosses (Malorie Blackman, 2001)
    2. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    3. Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish (Michael Foreman, 1972)
    4. The Hate U Give (Angie Thomas, 2017)
    5. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    6. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    7. Animal Farm (George Orwell, 1945)
    8. Gajapati Kulapati (Ashok Rajagopalan, 2010)
    9. A Kestrel for a Knave (Barry Hines, 1968)
    10. Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie, 1990)

    Jolanta Vitkute – Writer, Lithuania
    1. Time and Again Stories (Donald Bisset, 1970)
    2. Trollkarlens hatt (Tove Jansson, 1948)
    3. Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    4. Rudnosiuko istorijos (Vytautas V Landsbergis, 1993)
    5. Karlsson-on-the-Roof (Astrid Lindgren, 1955)
    6. Vaikas su žvaigžde kaktoje (Neringa Dangvydė, 2016)
    7. Baltoji varnelė (Sigitas Geda, 1985)
    8. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    9. Leche del sueño (Leonora Carrington, 2013)
    10. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)

    Marie Wabbes – President, Belgian Francophone section of IBBY, Belgium
    1. Ernest et Célestine ont perdu Siméon (Gabrielle Vincent, 1981)
    2. Max et les maximonstres (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    3. Hulul (Arnold Lobel, 1975)
    4. Chien Bleu (Nadja, 1989)
    5. Scritch scratch dip clapote! (Kitty Crowther, 2002)
    6. Les aventuriers du soir (Anne Brouillard, 2015)
    7. Petit-Bleu et Petit-Jaune (Leo Lionni, 1959)
    8. Okilélé (Claude Ponti, 1993)
    9. Le voyage d’Oregon (Rascal, 1993)
    10. Quand Hadda reviendra-t-elle? (Anne Herbauts, 2021)

    Courtney Weikle-Mills – University of Pittsburgh, United States
    1. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    2. When You Reach Me (Rebecca Stead, 2009)
    3. The Owl Service (Alan Garner, 1967)
    4. American Born Chinese (Gene Luen Yang and Lark Pien, 2006)
    5. Witch Week (Diana Wynne Jones, 1982)
    6. Pet (Akwaeke Emezi, 2019)
    7. The Raconteur’s Commonplace Book (Kate Milford, 2021)
    8. Sayantani Dasgupta (Sayantani Dasgupta, 2018)
    9. A Bit of Earth (Karuna Riazi, 2023)
    10. They Threw Us Away (Daniel Kraus, 2020)

    Sheena Wilkinson – Author, Ireland
    1. Ballet Shoes (Noel Streatfeild, 1936)
    2. Watership Down (Richard Adams, 1972)
    3. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Judith Kerr, 1971)
    4. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911)
    5. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1868)
    6. Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    7. Flambards (KM Peyton, 1967)
    8. The Railway Children (Edith Nesbit, 1906)
    9. End of Term (Antonia Forest, 1959)
    10. Carrie’s War (Nina Bawden, 1973)

    Holly Williams – Author and arts journalist, United Kingdom
    1. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    2. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    3. Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    4. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    5. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (Joan Aiken, 1962)
    6. Ballet Shoes (Noel Streatfeild, 1936)
    7. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    8. The Worst Witch (Jill Murphy, 1974)
    9. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    10. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (Judy Blume, 1970)

    Imogen Russell Williams – Children’s book reviewer, United Kingdom
    1. The Hounds of the Mórrígan (Pat O’Shea, 1985)
    2. Howl’s Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones, 1986)
    3. Julián Is a Mermaid (Jessica Love, 2018)
    4. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
    5. Winter Story (Jill Barklem, 1980)
    6. The Wheel of Surya (Jamila Gavin, 1992)
    7. A Face Like Glass (Frances Hardinge, 2012)
    8. Hey You!: An Empowering Celebration of Growing Up Black (Dapo Adeola, Nicole Miles and others, 2022)
    9. Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Being Good (Louie Stowell, 2022)
    10. Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths (Maisie Chan, 2021)

    Gemma Wright – Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom
    1. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    2. The Lie Tree (Frances Hardinge, 2015)
    3. Salt to the Sea (Ruta Sepetys, 2016)
    4. The Lost Words (Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, 2017)
    5. The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    6. The BFG (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1982)
    7. Lark (Anthony McGowan, 2019)
    8. Mortal Engines (Philip Reeve, 2001)
    9. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    10. October, October (Katya Balen and Angela Harding, 2020)

    Anna Zobel – Children’s author and illustrator, Australia
    1. The Journey Home (Alison Lester, 1989)
    2. The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
    3. Fire and Hemlock (Diana Wynne Jones, 1985)
    4. The Tombs of Atuan (Ursula K Le Guin, 1970)
    5. The Boy from the Mish (Gary Lonesborough, 2021)
    6. Clown (Quentin Blake, 1995)
    7. Witch Hat Atelier, Volume1 (Kamome Shirahama, 2017)
    8. Coraline (Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, 2002)
    9. Sorry Day (Coral Vass and Dub Leffler, 2018)
    10. Leo: A Ghost Story (Mac Barnett and Christian Robinson, 2015)

    Katie Zondlo – Cotsen Children’s Library, Princeton University, United States
    1. The Story of Ferdinand (Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, 1936)
    2. The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams, 1921)
    3. Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    4. The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle, 1969)
    5. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    6. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    7. The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats, 1962)
    8. Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
    9. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1868)
    10. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler (EL Konigsburg, 1967)

    Flavia Zorrilla Drago – Illustrator and author, Mexico
    1. I Want My Hat Back (Jon Klassen, 2011)
    2. My Grandpa (Marta Altés, 2012)
    3. Beautiful Griselda (Isol, 2010)
    4. The Three Robbers (Tomi Ungerer, 1961)
    5. The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My (Tove Jansson, 1952)
    6. Not Now, Bernard (David McKee, 1980)
    7. The Beastly Baby (Edward Gorey, 1995)
    8. Du Iz Tak? (Carson Ellis, 2016)
    9. To the Other Side (Erika Meza, 2023)
    10. Duck, Death and the Tulip (Wolf Erlbruch, 2007)

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  • The 100 greatest children’s books of all time

    The 100 greatest children’s books of all time

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    Over the years, BBC Culture has conducted major polls of film and TV critics, experts and industry figures from around the world to decide on the greatest films and TV shows in a particular category: you may have seen our 100 greatest TV shows of the 21st Century in 2021, for example, or our 100 greatest films directed by women list in 2019. However, for this year’s poll, we felt we needed to finally turn our attention to another art form so deeply embedded in all our lives – books. And there is no variety of books more embedded in them than children’s literature – after all, whatever our pastimes as we grow older, many of us share in the joy of reading at a young age, in and out of school.

    Read more about BBC Culture’s 100 greatest children’s books:
    –The 100 greatest children’s books
    –Why Where the Wild Things Are is the greatest children’s book
    – The 20 greatest children’s books
    – The 21st Century’s greatest children’s books
    – Who voted?

    #100GreatestChildrensBooks

    It also felt like just the moment to survey children’s books because of the recent conversation around how they are sorely undervalued compared to adult literature. In an interview last year, on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce powerfully lamented the current lack of conversation around children’s books. “There’s not the critical discussion there needs to be, around [them] at all,” he said – a view backed up just last week by The Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson on the same show.

    However, if great children’s writing is not receiving the critical respect it should these days, then it certainly continues to make news headlines – which are, for better or worse, a reminder of how core it is to our existence. Recently for example, there’s been the furore over the rewriting of Roald Dahl’s novels for modern sensibilities – and more generally, the widespread concern over the growing movement in the US towards banning children’s books, including many dealing with racial and LGBTQ+ themes. All in all, then, it felt like the right time to do our bit to both give children’s literature its due and consider what has made and continues to make great children’s writing. And so, in order to do that, we have decided to ask many experts a very simple question: what is the greatest children’s book of all time?

    While of course far from definitive, the answers we have gleaned are fascinating – and we hope will make readers both wistful for the books they loved in their youth and ready to try out titles that passed them by, or were published after they came of age; for there is no reason that the greatest children’s literature shouldn’t be equally nourishing to an adult. In total, 1050 different books were voted for by 177 experts – critics, authors and publishing figures – who came from 56 countries, from Austria to Uzbekistan. Of these voters, 133 were female, 41 were male and three preferred not to say. Each voter listed their 10 greatest children’s books, which we scored and ranked to produce the top 100 listed below.

    The end result is a list that reflects the vast scope of children’s literature through the eras, standing as a tribute to its boundless imagination, thrilling storytelling, and profound themes – from the Panchatantra, a collection of Indian children’s stories dating back to the 2nd Century BCE, to the newest book in the list, A Kind of Spark, published in 2020. Of course, though, just as the list celebrates a huge scope of work, it also has its limitations and biases. For example, 74 of the 100 books featured were first published in the English language, with the next most popular language being Swedish, with nine entries. Meanwhile books published between the 1950s and 1970s were most prevalent, which may be related to the age profile of voters, the majority of whom were born in the 1970s and 1980s. Fourteen of the top 100 books were published in this century – and it would be fascinating to see how many other newer books might be included, should we repeat the poll in 10 or 20 years’ time. Given the publishing industry’s continued efforts to create a more inclusive landscape, one could also expect the list of authors to diversify further.

    To accompany the top 100, you can read a series of pieces reflecting on the results of the poll. These include an essay about the poll winner, Maurice Sendak’s beloved picture book Where the Wild Things Are; a piece giving a detailed rundown of the top 20, and what voters said about them; and an article on the poll’s 21st-Century books and how they reflect how children’s literature is evolving. And that’s just the start: in coming weeks, we will also publish a series of features getting to grips with some key books and authors in the poll, and the ideas they embody, as well as some of the major issues surrounding children’s publishing today.

    Of course, the list is not designed as a fait accompli, but rather as an inspiration for further discovery and debate. Tell us what you think – and what you think is missing – using the hashtag #100GreatestChildrensBooks. We hope that you find the poll as fascinating and illuminating as we have – as a celebration of writing, creativity and the books that have truly shaped us all.

    1          Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963)
    2          Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, 1865)
    3          Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945)
    4          The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943)
    5          The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien, 1937)
    6          Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)
    7          The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (CS Lewis, 1950)
    8          Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne and EH Shepard, 1926)
    9          Charlotte’s Web (EB White and Garth Williams, 1952)
    10        Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1988)
    11        Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery, 1908)
    12        Fairy Tales (Hans Christian Andersen, 1827)
    13        Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (JK Rowling, 1997)
    14        The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle, 1969)
    15        The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper, 1973)
    16        The Arrival (Shaun Tan, 2006)
    17        Little Women (Louisa May Alcott, 1868)
    18        Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl, 1964)
    19        Heidi (Johanna Spyri, 1880)
    20        Goodnight Moon (Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, 1947)
    21        The Adventures of Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi, 1883)
    22        A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K Le Guin, 1968)
    23        Moominland Midwinter (Tove Jansson, 1957)
    24        I Want My Hat Back (Jon Klassen, 2011)
    25        The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911)
    26        Duck, Death and the Tulip (Wolf Erlbruch, 2007)
    27        The Brothers Lionheart (Astrid Lindgren, 1973)
    28        Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (JK Rowling, 1999)
    29        Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson, 2014)
    30        The Three Robbers (Tomi Ungerer, 1961)
    31        The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats, 1962)
    32        The Tiger Who Came to Tea (Judith Kerr, 1968)
    33        Howl’s Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones, 1986)
    34        A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle, 1962)
    35        Watership Down (Richard Adams, 1972)
    36        Tom’s Midnight Garden (Philippa Pearce, 1958)
    37        Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Brothers Grimm, 1812)
    38        The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter, 1902)
    39        The Railway Children (Edith Nesbit, 1906)
    40        Noughts and Crosses (Malorie Blackman, 2001)
    41        The BFG (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1982)
    42        Rules of Summer (Shaun Tan, 2013)
    43        Momo (Michael Ende, 1973)
    44        The Story of Ferdinand (Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, 1936)
    45        The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien, 1954)
    46        The Owl Service (Alan Garner, 1967)
    47        Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter (Astrid Lindgren, 1981)
    48        The Neverending Story (Michael Ende, 1979)
    49        The Panchatantra (Anonymous / folk, -200)
    50        Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883)
    51        Mary Poppins (PL Travers, 1934)
    52        Ballet Shoes (Noel Streafield, 1936)
    53        So Much! (Trish Cooke and Helen Oxenbury, 1994)
    54        We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, 1989)
    55        The Adventures of Cipollino (Gianni Rodari, 1951)
    56        The Giving Tree (Shel Silverstein, 1964)
    57        The Gruffalo (Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, 1999)
    58        Julián Is a Mermaid (Jessica Love, 2018)
    59        Comet in Moominland (Tove Jansson, 1946)
    60        Finn Family Moomintroll (Tove Jansson, 1948)
    61        The Witches (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1983)
    62        A Bear Called Paddington (Michael Bond, 1958)
    63        The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame, 1908)
    64        Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Mildred D Taylor, 1977)
    65        Karlsson-on-the-Roof (Astrid Lindgren, 1955)
    66        The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer, 1961)
    67        The Cat in the Hat (Dr Seuss, 1957)
    68        The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (Kate DiCamillo and Bagram Ibatoulline, 2006)
    69        Peter and Wendy (JM Barrie, 1911)
    70        One Thousand and One Nights (Anonymous / folk)
    71        From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler (EL Konigsburg, 1967)
    72        When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Judith Kerr, 1971)
    73        Shum bola (G’afur G’ulоm, 1936)
    73        Ernest and Celestine (Gabrielle Vincent, 1981)
    75        A Kind of Spark (Elle McNicoll, 2020)
    76        Little Nicholas (René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé, 1959)
    77        Black Beauty (Anna Sewell, 1877)
    78        Daddy-Long-Legs (Jean Webster, 1912)
    79        No Kiss for Mother (Tomi Ungerer, 1973)
    80        My Family and Other Animals (Gerald Durrell, 1956)
    81        Jacob Have I Loved (Katherine Paterson, 1980)
    81        The Lorax (Dr Seuss, 1971)
    83        Fairy Tales / The Tales of Mother Goose (Charles Perrault, 1697)
    84        The Moomins and the Great Flood (Tove Jansson, 1945)
    85        The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (L Frank Baum, 1900)
    86        Just William (Richmal Crompton, 1922)
    87        The Twits (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, 1980)
    87        The Mouse and His Child (Russell Hoban, 1967)
    87        Out of My Mind (Sharon M Draper, 2010)
    87        Moominvalley in November (Tove Jansson, 1970)
    87        Little House in the Big Woods (Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1932)
    92        Danny the Champion of the World (Roald Dahl, 1975)
    93        The Snowman (Raymond Briggs, 1978)
    94        Wave (Suzy Lee, 2008)
    95        The Black Brothers (Lisa Tetzner, 1940)
    96        The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams, 1921)
    97        The Bad Beginning (Lemony Snicket, 1999)
    98        The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman, 2008)
    99        American Born Chinese (Gene Luen Yang and Lark Pien, 2006)
    100      Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie, 1990)

    Read more about BBC Culture’s 100 greatest children’s books:
    –The 100 greatest children’s books
    –Why Where the Wild Things Are is the greatest children’s book
    – The 20 greatest children’s books
    – The 21st Century’s greatest children’s books
    – Who voted?

    #100GreatestChildrensBooks

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  • The greatest children’s books of the 21st Century

    The greatest children’s books of the 21st Century

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    They certainly reached for Brown Girl Dreaming. Woodson admits to having been stunned by the breadth of readers who got in touch after its publication in 2014. As she recalls, “I got letters from girls in India and white boys in the [American] South. I got letters from 60-year-old white men my grandfather had coached when they were boys playing baseball. Letters came in from women of all colours my age, and black and white girls as young as nine. So often, people said ‘I don’t know you and our lives are very different but you’re telling some part of my story here’.”

    McNicoll, too, has found her fan mail enlightening, coming as it does from readers of all ages. “Schoolchildren write to me to say they love it. Adults have said they understand things more clearly. Doctors have told me their patients bring it with them, and a prison librarian told me a prisoner stole their library copy to hide it in their cell for comfort after checking it out to read over and over. That, I will never forget.”

    The notion that children’s literature should truly be for everyone, regardless even of age, feels very of-the-moment in its boundaryless fluidity, yet it harks back to the past and a time when there was no such category as children’s writing. Consider Aesop’s Fables, among the oldest works on BBC Culture’s list: long popular with children, they were never actually intended for them.

    Read more about BBC Culture’s 100 greatest children’s books:

    – The 100 greatest children’s books
    – Why Where the Wild Things Are is the greatest children’s book
    – The 20 greatest children’s books
    – Who voted?

    #100greatestchildrensbooks

    If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.

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  • The 20 greatest children’s books ever – what the voters say

    The 20 greatest children’s books ever – what the voters say

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    5. The Hobbit (words and illustrations by JRR Tolkien, 1937)

    The classic fantasy novel The Hobbit is set in Middle Earth, and follows the journey of hobbit protagonist Bilbo Baggins, wizard Gandalf and 13 dwarves. On their episodic quest to reclaim the dwarves’ home and treasure, they encounter conflict and danger, and Bilbo gains a new level of maturity and wisdom. Bilbo Baggins is, says UK-based illustrator Jim Kay, “an unlikely, diminutive protagonist in a beautifully realised world” – the novel is “still a joy to read, and it rattles along at a wonderful pace”.  Children’s author and broadcaster Chris Smith credits The Hobbit with leading him to a whole new world of reading: “Not only is this an amazing story for children, it’s also the ultimate gateway book because it unlocks the enormous world of [sequel] Lord of the Rings. When my teacher read us this book in year nine it blew my mind,  and started me off on a reading journey that’s still going strong, and still feels unexpected 40 years later.” US author Christopher Paolini, meanwhile, describes The Hobbit as “a perfect fairy tale for young and old alike. Tolkien captured magic with this one”. 

    6. Northern Lights (Philip Pullman, 1995)

    The first of the trilogy His Dark Materials, the powerful Northern Lights is set in a parallel universe dominated by the Magisterium, where Lyra Belacqua – accompanied by her “daemon” – travels to the Arctic to search for her missing friend Roger and her imprisoned uncle Lord Asriel, who has been experimenting with a mysterious substance, “Dust”. Pam Dix, chair of IBBY UK, recalls how the novel  “exploded into the children’s fiction world. Bringing together a multiplicity of concepts in a format that is more than fantasy, more than historical fiction, a new form”. Lisa Sainsbury of the University of Roehampton says: “When Philip Pullman conceived of daemons and created a world for them, he conjured one of the potent metaphors of children’s literature. Northern Lights (and His Dark Materials) offers the means through which to explore the mysteries of childhood and growing up, and renders these experiences through a bold expression of girlhood. Northern Lights makes childhood matter, long after we have moved into realms beyond it.” Writer and journalist Beverley D’Silva praises the novel as “life-changing, cosmic storytelling”. 

    7. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (words by C S Lewis; illustrations by Pauline Baynes, 1950)

    CS Lewis’s fantasy novel is the first – and the most celebrated – of seven novels in the Chronicles of Narnia. A land of talking animals and mythical creatures ruled by the evil White Witch, Narnia is the setting in which four English schoolchildren find themselves, after travelling there through a wardrobe in the country house where they are staying. Their adventures lead them to meet the lion Aslan. “With the publication of this book, we learned that we could enter another world through the back of a wardrobe, and our world was never the same,” says US-based writer Ellen Kushner. While US author Christopher Paolini  writes: “Step through this door into a new world… Isn’t that the basis of so many stories? Lewis perfectly captured that feel, and his characters are lively and memorable, as is the land of Narnia. As with all great stories, the ending is a bit bittersweet, and leaves one yearning for more.” The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is “just a magnificent book”, says Tine Nielsen of Babel-Bridge Literary Agency, Denmark, “with so many compelling characters, so many layers and so many memories that will stay with you for the rest of your life”.  

    8. Winnie-the-Pooh (words by AA Milne; illustrations by EH Shepard, 1926)

    Set in the fictional Hundred Acre Wood, the beloved Winnie-the-Pooh follows the adventures of anthropomorphic bear Pooh, and his friends Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, Rabbit, Kanga and Roo. Its sequel is The House at Pooh Garden. “An unforgettable story of friendship” is how Theresa Rogers, professor of education at the University of British Columbia, Canada, describes it. “Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet and the rest are affecting characters that young readers take with them throughout their lives (as have I).” Katrin Lilija, editor-in-chief of Lestrarklefinn, Iceland, also has happy memories of reading the book as she grew up: “Winnie the Pooh is a book I enjoyed with my father as a child. The innocence of Pooh bear has stayed with me since my childhood, along with some memorable solutions and misunderstandings he and the other animals in Hundred Acre Wood make. The story of Pooh is a book I read to my children.” UK author MG Leonard is also a fan: “The humour [and] the perfectly observed idiosyncrasies of each character throughout these gentle stories about growing up are unsurpassed. I was read these stories, then read these stories, and have then gone on to read them to my own children.”

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  • Where the Wild Things Are: The greatest children’s book ever

    Where the Wild Things Are: The greatest children’s book ever

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    The book has also endured because while its details are delightfully specific – the look of the outlandish monsters, the white wolf suit, the fact Max chases the dog with a fork, and his cry “I’ll eat you up!” in response to being called “wild thing!” – it’s also entirely relatable and open to interpretation. I was obsessed with Where the Wild Things Are as a child and have carried my dog-eared copy, with its 90p price label, through countless house moves into adulthood, a talisman of sorts. My parents divorced when I was a baby and, as a very small child, I found leaving my mum and my regular home to stay at my dad and stepmum’s house unsettling, despite the warm welcome. Looking back, I realise I idolised Max, his ability to sail off into the night, far from his mother, and fearlessly confront those monsters. I longed to be brave just like him. 

    Of course, Max didn’t actually sail off into the night. But to my child self, there was no difference between what was real and what Max imagined within the book. Interviews with Sendak frequently reference the “doorways” or “secret entrances and exits” between the parallel realms of reality and fantasy that he intuitively understood and could readily slip between, just like a child, when creating. In 1970, when Braun visited Sendak at his home on West Ninth Street in Manhattan, the journalist described the actual passageway to his home studio as “long and narrow and dimly lit”, a space Sendak transitioned through every day to “recover the world of his childhood”. Perhaps this is what Sendak also offers his readers: more than just a book, Wild Things is a portal to the feelings and desires of our own infancy. It actually takes us through one of Sendak’s mysterious passageways, allowing us to not just hear about, but also to re-experience the childhood realm.

    Above all, in our age of iPhones, computer games and AI, of oversaturation from the endless churn of 24-hour TV and social media, Wild Things is a much-needed reminder of what really makes children – and people generally – tick: freedom to express themselves, play, connection to nature, family and, of course, love. His masterpiece might be only a few hundred words in length, but it captures the very essence of the human condition: that, when all is said and done, when we need to rest from our adventuring, we all long to go home to where someone loves us best of all.

    Imogen Carter is the picture book critic for The Observer.

    Read more about BBC Culture’s 100 greatest children’s books:
    The 100 greatest children’s books
    The 20 greatest children’s books
    The 21st Century’s greatest children’s books
    Who voted?
    #100GreatestChildrensBooks

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  • The dark side of Roald Dahl

    The dark side of Roald Dahl

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    Dahl, Nikolajeva believes, “is one of the most colourful and light-hearted children’s writers”. But for all the funniness and dazzling linguistic acrobatics of his prose, she acknowledges that there are problems with his vision. Consider Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “Wonka is vegetarian and only eats healthy food, but he seduces children with sweets. It’s highly immoral,” she says. And then there’s The Witches, whose child narrator, having been turned into a mouse, decides against returning to his human form because he dreads outliving his beloved grandmother. He’d rather die with her, as his abbreviated rodent lifespan will guarantee. “This is a denial of growing up and mortality, but mortality is one of the aspects that makes us human,” Nikolajeva points out. “To tell young readers that you can escape growing up by dying is dubious – drawn to the utmost, an encouragement of suicide – and therefore both an ideological and an aesthetic flaw”.

    Darkness, for want of a better word, has forever been a secret – and not so secret – ingredient in children’s literature, whether it’s tales by the Brothers Grimm and Heinrich Hoffmann, or Lord of the Flies and The Hunger Games. If you’ve ever paid attention to the words of a nursery rhyme like Ring a Ring o’ Roses or Oranges and Lemons, you’ll know that suckling babes are reared on the stuff – and with good reason. As child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim explained in his seminal study, The Uses of Enchantment, the macabre in children’s literature serves an important cathartic function. “Without such fantasies, the child fails to get to know his monster better, nor is he given suggestions as to how he may gain mastery over it. As a result, the child remains helpless with his worst anxieties – much more so than if he had been told fairy tales which give these anxieties form and body and also show ways to overcome these monsters,” he wrote.

    Light and shade

    It’s not hard to see where Dahl might have drawn his own darkness from. Having lost his older sister and father when he was three years old (his sister to appendicitis, his father to pneumonia), he was packed off to boarding school aged just nine. The first volume of his memoirs, Boy, recalls in great detail the headmaster’s penchant for floggings so vicious they drew blood.

    As a young RAF pilot in World War Two, Dahl came close to dying. Invalided out after crash landing in the Western Desert, he subsequently spent time in the US, seducing heiresses and wealthy widows in the name of counterintelligence. His long first marriage, to the actress and celebrated beauty Patricia Neal, had far from a storybook ending. The couple lost their eldest daughter to illness, and their only son was left brain-damaged by a traffic accident. A few years later, Neal herself suffered a series of strokes while pregnant with their fifth child. Relearning how to speak in recovery, she would come out with language that inspired the BFG’s lexicon.

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  • The Little Mermaid review: A fairytale ‘for the age of Marvel movies’

    The Little Mermaid review: A fairytale ‘for the age of Marvel movies’

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    There is logic to the breakdown of live action and animation here. Even half-humans are played by actors while everyone else is animated, including Ariel’s friends Scuttle the bird (voiced by Awkwafina, given too few funny lines) and Flounder (Jacob Tremblay in a functional role). But if only we could have seen Diggs singing and dancing.

    Melissa McCarthy plays the sea-witch Ursula with evil glee, but is constantly overwhelmed by bolts of light, her own flailing tentacles and other special effects, especially when offering Ariel her deal: grow legs, go above the sea and make Eric fall in love with her, but do it without a voice. Even without dialogue, Bailey makes her connection with Eric seem real, and Hauer-King gives Eric enough of a character, a prince with a social conscience, so that he’s more than the usual bland Disney dreamboat.  

    The original songs by Alan Menken, with lyrics by the late Howard Ashman, are mostly intact, and the small changes are barely noticeable improvements. Kiss the Girl now says “Just ask her” instead of suggesting that Eric just go in for the kiss, and Ursula’s Poor Unfortunate Souls no longer suggests that men prefer women who can’t speak (even though the film is set in the 19th Century). The three new songs by Menken with lyrics by Lin Manuel-Miranda don’t begin to measure up, though. A rap called The Scuttlebutt, which Awkwafina and Sebastian sing, is not great but at least it avoids the blandness of Eric’s Wild Uncharted Waters and Ariel’s For the First Time.

    In true superhero fashion, the film feels padded. A dance scene on a beach and a carriage ride for Eric and Ariel stretch the running time to two hours and 15 minutes. In another unnecessary touch, Eric’s mother the Queen (Noma Dumezweni) delivers a final, blunt message of unity, saying that the worlds of sea and land should live in harmony. The film’s diverse casting has already made the point about unity, and done so much more eloquently. The Little Mermaid mostly avoids preaching, though. It remains what it always was: a charming, escapist fairy tale.

    ★★★☆☆

    The Little Mermaid is on general release from 26 May.

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  • Killers of the Flower Moon review: Scorsese’s handsome Western is ‘too slow’

    Killers of the Flower Moon review: Scorsese’s handsome Western is ‘too slow’

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    Other alternative protagonists keep drifting into view. The film is adapted from David Grann’s book, which is subtitled “The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI”, and yet the main agent responsible for cracking the case, played by Jesse Plemons, isn’t introduced for two hours. Incidentally, the lawyers in the subsequent court case, played by John Lithgow and Brendan Fraser, don’t turn up for another half-hour after that. Or what about Mollie, who trusts Ernest, but is also a proud, cool-headed, perceptive woman who is determined that justice be served? Might the film have had more purpose if it had concentrated on her? There are fascinating revelations about how the Osage people are infantilised, and how they conduct their business, but these should have accounted for a bigger chunk of the three-and-a-half hour running time.

    The last half-hour in particular prompts mixed feelings because, despite some touching, sober scenes, it becomes a Coen Brothersesque farce about just how stupid criminals can be. It’s the most enjoyable part of the film, but also the most questionable. If Scorsese was set on making a blackly comic romp featuring a patronising gangster and his numbskulled nephew, maybe he shouldn’t have used the real massacre of Native Americans as its subject.

    ★★★☆☆

    Killers of the Flower Moon is on general release from 20 October.

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  • The Zone of Interest review from Cannes: Five stars for Jonathan Glazer’s Holocaust ‘masterpiece’

    The Zone of Interest review from Cannes: Five stars for Jonathan Glazer’s Holocaust ‘masterpiece’

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    Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) is showing her mother around her garden in the sunshine. Three years earlier, it was just a field, but now it has neat lawns, paved paths, a pool, a greenhouse, and thriving flower beds. “It’s a paradise garden,” marvels her proud mother. But, of course, the family wouldn’t have their enviable home if it weren’t for the hard work of Hedwig’s husband Rudolf (Christian Friedel). “He’s under pressure like you wouldn’t believe,” she says.

    The women’s quiet, middle-class chit-chat could hardly be more ordinary, but it’s rendered dizzyingly surreal and deeply horrific by certain details that they don’t seem to notice: the grey, barbed wire-topped wall on one side of the garden; the barracks and the belching chimney just beyond it; and the constant background noise of industrial rumbling, steam trains chuffing, some intermittent shouting, and the occasional echoing gunshot. Slowly and steadily, without any big, sudden reveal, we learn that Rudolf is Rudolf Höss, the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, and that he, his wife, and their young children have a contented, healthy, if slightly boring life while thousands of people are killed daily just a few feet away.

    More like this:

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    Jonathan Glazer, the writer-director of Under the Skin, Birth, and Sexy Beast, has made a Holocaust film like no other – one that makes its point not by depicting the horrors being endured in the camps, but by excluding them. A blood-freezing treatise on the banality of evil, The Zone of Interest is credited as being based on a novel by Martin Amis, but Glazer strips away almost everything in the novel, plot included. The domestic day-to-day business he leaves behind is so understated and undramatic that the film is like a fly-on-the-wall documentary, except that it is composed of beautiful, pin-sharp tableaux. Höss is never shown inside the camp itself, and the nature of his work is barely mentioned, even when he has meetings about quotas and payments with his colleagues. When Hedwig tries on a fur coat that has been delivered to the house along with a bundle of other clothes, and when one of the boys plays with some gold teeth, nobody discusses where the items have come from.

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  • Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny review: ‘Gloomy and depressing’ final act

    Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny review: ‘Gloomy and depressing’ final act

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    Besides, everything is smaller and cheaper than it was in the original trilogy. Indy up against the military might of the Third Reich in 1936? We could all get behind that. But Indy up against one scientist and his silent, interchangeable henchmen in 1969? It’s just not such a big deal. Mangold and his team dutifully crank out the action sequences, but it’s often hard to tell what’s happening or why, and there is a shortage of surprising, rip-roaring moments to make you stand up and cheer, despite the best efforts of John Williams’ rousing classic theme. Take an early chase in New York, for instance. It’s set during a ticker-tape parade for the three astronauts who were on the Apollo 11 moon mission, so you can imagine the high jinks that Spielberg might have cooked up: some slapstick with Buzz Aldrin, perhaps, or a giant papier-maché moon rolling down Fifth Avenue like the boulder in Raiders of The Lost Ark. But Mangold and his team do so little with the parade that you wonder why they bothered staging it.

    It’s the same with the scenes in which Indy is face to face with some snake-like eels, and when he finds his way into Archimedes’ tomb. The jokes, the zest and the exuberance just aren’t there, so instead of a joyous send-off for our beloved hero, we get a depressing reminder of how much livelier his past adventures were. Considering that the screenplay is credited to four writers – Mangold, David Koepp and Jez and John-Henry Butterworth – couldn’t they at least have thought of something cool for Indy to do with his whip?

    Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is released on 30 June in the UK and US

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  • Monster review: ‘A marvel’ and ‘bittersweet’

    Monster review: ‘A marvel’ and ‘bittersweet’

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    Is there anyone in world cinema quite like Hirokazu Kore-eda? Year after year, the Japanese writer-director keeps making wry, humane, quietly heart-wrenching comedy dramas, and every one of them is a treat. He won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Shoplifters in 2018, but, really, you could stick a pin in most of the past 25 years, and you’d hit a Kore-eda film that deserved some prize or other. That includes Monster, written by Yuji Sakamoto, which premiered at Cannes on Tuesday.

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    The first thing to say about Monster is that it isn’t a monster movie, but it’s tricky to define what kind of movie it is. Maybe it’s most accurate to say that it is three films, in three different genres, one after another, that examine the same events from three different perspectives. The initial third introduces Saori (Sakura Ando), a widowed laundry worker who lives in a small Japanese coastal town, and has an endearingly jovial relationship with her son Minato (Soya Kurokawa). But Minato has started to act strangely: he hacks at his long hair with a pair of kitchen scissors, and he jumps out of the car she is driving. Perhaps his behaviour is due to his being upset about his father’s death, but Saori learns that he is being insulted and assaulted by one of his teachers, the shady Mr Hori (Eita Nagayama). The mystery intensifies when she goes to the school to complain, and the principal and other staff members are so evasive and withdrawn that they could be brainwashed cult-members or aliens in human form.

    This segment is a wonderful chiller that balances extreme creepiness with the clutter and colour of ordinary life, and which works as a Kafkaesque commentary on how difficult it can be to know what your children are going through, and on how frustrating it can be to try to get straight answers from those in authority. But then Monster rewinds and covers the same period again, this time as a satirical black comedy about institutional cowardice and social media, before covering it a third time as a bittersweet tale of bullying and fragile youthful friendship. Each third fills in more pieces of the jigsaw, adds layers to the characters, and forces the viewer to reassess who the “monster” of the title actually is.

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  • Dario Argento interview: ‘There is a fascination surrounding murder and I try to use my fantasy to explore it’

    Dario Argento interview: ‘There is a fascination surrounding murder and I try to use my fantasy to explore it’

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    BBCC: Let’s go back to the beginning with your debut The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. The film famously played for several years straight in Milan. Why do you think it was so popular?

    DA: I think it was because it was the first time psychology and psychoanalysis was put into a Giallo movie, and that went beyond the normal Giallo movies at the time. Most of them didn’t have many layers. I added a psychological depth to it. It is probably the reason why it was so popular and also why it was so imitated by other directors afterwards.

    I was very influenced by American movies from the 1950s and 60s in that regard, in particular those produced by Val Lewton. He used to produce very low-budget movies. The distribution companies used to screen them as B-movies or second movies in double bills. But Lewton allowed directors like Jacques Tourneur, Mark Robson, and Robert Wise to make low-budget films with incredible, psychological stories.

    BBCC: The score for The Bird with the Crystal Plumage was by the famed Ennio Morricone. You are known for your detailed relationship to film music, in particular with the experimental rock group Goblin [who scored Suspiria and a number of others], as well as taking a role in it yourself. How is working with a singular composer and a band different?

    DA: It’s totally different. With Morricone, he had to create a symphony for long scenes and long shots to create an atmosphere. A band like Goblin has the freedom to go crazy, really crazy in fact. The score that the band creates for a single scene has to be instantly explosive so the relationship to composition is different.

    BBCC: With your thriller Deep Red [1975], there entered into your cinema a more supernatural element, as opposed to the straighter murder-led thrillers and Giallo films. Do you distinguish your straighter Giallo from your more supernatural films such as Suspiria and Phenomena [1985]?

    DA: I don’t make such a distinction myself as my inspiration does not come from my mind but my soul. I am never able to predict which films will have more supernatural elements than thriller elements, or vice-versa.

    BBCC: Architecture is important in your films. How do you choose your buildings and locations?

    DA: Sometimes I have cities in mind that could fit into my films, so I drive around them looking for buildings. Sometimes I already know buildings that could work well in particular places, too. I really like to drive around and search for the right atmosphere until I know the city and its buildings well enough to decide.

    BBCC: Suspiria, your tale of witches haunting a German dance school, is arguably your most famous film. It’s also one of the most visually striking films ever made. How did you achieve its stark array of colours?

    DA: That required a long study for me and cinematographer Luciano Tovoli. We wanted to have the same colours of those early Western movies shot in Technicolor. So colourisation and finding a colour palette was the first thing we decided together; inspired by the colours of the red sunsets, the blue uniforms etc. in those early Westerns. We also watched the colours of early Disney animations like Cinderella [1950]. That was so we could get the colours just right.

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  • Fast X review: ‘Preposterous from beginning to end’

    Fast X review: ‘Preposterous from beginning to end’

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    The villains are usually killed in these fights – even if they’re not really villains: the Agency’s troops are just trying to apprehend people they believe to be terrorists, but that doesn’t stop Dom and his crew butchering them by the dozen. (Again, it’s best not to worry about this too much.) The heroes, meanwhile, never suffer anything worse than a scratch, which is the film’s fundamental flaw. Dom and co are all indestructible, hyper-competent, and immune to the laws of physics, which means that the viewer doesn’t have the fun of seeing them come up with clever ways to get out of sticky situations. They get out of sticky situations by being superhuman. They can drive their cars off a bridge or out of a plane, plummet for half a mile, and both they and their vehicles are as right as rain afterwards. Amusing as this may be, it does mean that there isn’t any tension.

    For similar reasons, the stunts are never as thrilling as they should be. You’d have to assume that some fancy driving was involved, but it’s hidden by all the CGI and the frenetic editing and camerawork. While Bond movies show you that actual people perform the stunts, and the Mission: Impossible films show you that Tom Cruise performs them himself, Fast X leaves you unsure as to whether those stunts are performed at all. Nothing seems real, so none of it seems to matter.

    Leterrier’s achievement in assembling such a gargantuan, multi-stranded, globe-trotting, head-spinning blockbuster is impressive, but however many gruff sermons Dom makes about his family, it’s impossible to care about any of it.

    ★★★☆☆

    Fast X is on general release from 19 May.

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