With so many people out of work this book, set in the Great Depression may well resonate with young people today. It's Christmas 1931 and Henry and his out-of-work father go to New York to sell Christmas trees to earn a little money. They have no money for heat or blankets. When they get to New York City they unload their trees on the site where Rockefeller Center is being built and the men working on the site take a liking to them. At the end of the day Henry's dad leaves a tree that the construction workers decorate; the first of the many glorious trees that will stand on that site. Before he leaves, Henry finds a pinecone near the tree and takes it home. The next day several of the workers show up at Henry's home with scrap lumber. Together they construct a small house and Henry plants the pinecone. Click forward. Henry is now an old man. He is living in the house and the little pine cone has become a giant tree. Henry ends up donating his giant tree for Rockefeller Center when he learns that the tree will be turned into wood for a needy family's Habitat for Living Home. The story of the Christmas of 1931 and the real first tree is told in the author's notes. This is one of those big beautiful holiday books with lush illustrations and heartfelt story. 6 & up.

Age: Early School Years, Later School Years. Award Year: 2011. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

A fascinating collection of animal homes are shown in this young science book. From treetop chimps to spiders in underwater bubbles, Irene Kelly shows the great variety of places animals live in. The art is playful but realistic enough to inform and the text is lively while conveying a sense of how and why the animals live where they do.

Age: Early School Years, Later School Years. Award Year: 2011. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Lise Lunge-Larsen begins and ends each of these classic myths by connecting them to the way we use a name or word from the stories in our every day lives. She connects words we speak to these ancient tales. Her storytelling style keeps the stories short but pithy. The art has some cartoonish elements, including comic book style bubbles. It all adds up to an easier read than more serious myth collections. For those who take their myths seriously, these will not replace classics like the D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. That said, it is an interesting way into the classics.

Age: Early School Years, Later School Years. Award Year: 2011. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Did you know cavewomen dyed their hair blonde to attract a caveman? It seems there was a lot of competition for a caveman, since so many perished while hunting. But that is just one of dozens of entries with amusing illustrations that comb through the ages and the strange ways and reasons people did what they did to their hair. That blonde looks strangely like Marilyn Monroe. But that is just one of the odd ways that hair styles tell about the times. It's not just about women and their hair styles. There are all kinds of oh-so-strange remedies such as goat pee and pigeon poop that men chose to cure baldness. As non-fiction books go, this one tries hard to be "hip" and informative with large dollops of humor added, like styling mousse or glittery highlights for a bit of sparkle. 

Age: Later School Years, Tweens. Award Year: 2011. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Surviving the death of a parent is hard at any age--but for a child it is almost impossible to imagine. The Scar opens with the harsh reality as the young narrator says, "Mom died this morning." What follows after the opening bitterness are the boy's fears about how he will not be able to remember her voice, her smell, her essence. In his efforts to hold on to her he closes the windows and worries about who will take care of him and his dad. This is a disquieting book that packs a whirlwind of emotions into each page and stage of grief. It is a book that just might help with the healing for some families that are going through such a loss.

Age: Early School Years, Later School Years. Award Year: 2011. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Out in the desert a boy is learning his fathers craft of finding "tears" in the twisted trees. He is leaving how to collect these "tears" of sap that are filled with resin that can be sold in the market for medicine and soothing the skin. In this mysterious and hauntingly beautiful story set more than 2,000 years ago, the boy and his father arrive in the market as three men were searching for one special gift they would take with them to a special child. Unlike any other stories of the Magi, this one sneaks up and surprises. It is rather a darker tale than most as we learn that the Third Gift is also used for funerals to cleanse the departed and burn as a scent. The big resin tear found by the boy was also a gift to celebrate a birth--they were to become the gift of Myrrh brought with the gold and frankincense. The art work is in graceful harmony with the quiet telling of a memorable story.

Age: Early School Years, Later School Years. Award Year: 2011. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Although it is a fictional account of the events in New Orleans, when Hurricane Katrina struck, the voice of the narrator, a 10-year old boy named Louis, who plays a coronet, captures some of the terror of that time. Colin Bootman's moving paintings combine perfectly with Myron Uhlberg's believable narrative that tells the story of one family's experiences as they drift into the watery world of the floods and the chaos of the dome where they went seeking shelter. Although 10 seems old for a narrator of a picture book, this feels totally on the mark. His Mama calls him her baby, but in the end it is Louis who proves he is anything but a baby. 7-11.

Age: Early School Years, Later School Years. Award Year: 2011. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

You have probably seen little Lucky Cat figurines with one paw uplifted in Japanese shops and restaurants. This is the back story of that little cat who finds shelter in the home of a monk and manages to bring good fortune to the monk and those who come to pray. When a Samurai comes calling it is the Lucky Cat who saves him from danger and who eventually comes to care for the temple and those who live in it. Handsome watercolor paintings add an authentic charm to the story. 5-9

Age: Early School Years, Later School Years. Award Year: 2011. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Using her comic strip style, Marcia Williams make these ancient tales of Egypt totally accessible to young Egyptologists. She retells nine tales that introduce readers to Ra rising from the waters of the Nile, the curse of Tut's tomb, and Cleopatra's story along with many others. Like her collection of Greek Myths for Children, this is a good starting place before a visit to one of the many great museum collections or a traveling Tut show. Putting some of the stories in place gives the art and history a fuller dimension. They say 6 & up--we'd say more like 8 & up.

Age: Early School Years, Later School Years. Award Year: 2011. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Set in the segregated South, this handsome picture book takes young readers into the world of Jim Crow as Michael, an African American boy and his grandmother wait for a bus and sit on bench until a white boy and his mother arrive and Michael and Grandma must get up and give them the seats. When the bus finally arrives they must go to the back of a bus and when they get off both boys race for the water fountains-one marked colored and one marked white. For Michael, the idea that the white water must be better becomes a gnawing obsession that leads him to dare to taste the forbidden 'white water' and discover that the water from both come from the same pipe. It is a discovery that changes the way he thinks about himself and the segregated world that treated him as a second-class person. In telling and showing the conditions of that time and place, White Water may shock young readers of today, but it manages to capture so many of the affronts that were part of life in the south.

Age: Early School Years, Later School Years. Award Year: 2011. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.