December Summaries: Two "Best" Books Lists

December.  We look back and summarize our year on Christmas cards. Book review journals summarize a year of publishing in "best" lists.

School Library Journal has published three Best Books lists: Fiction, Non-fiction, and Picture Books. (From the fiction list, you can access the other two lists.)

These SLJ lists hover around twenty titles in each category. It's interesting to compare those lists with the shorter (more selective?) list from Horn Book.
The Horn Book Fanfare lists only nine picture books compared to SLJ's twenty. Interestingly enough, Horn Book lists three that don't appear on SLJ's list: The Tiny King by Taro Miura, Nino Wrestles the World by Yuyi Morales, and Gobble You Up by Gita Wolf.

I don't know how often it happens, but looking over all the lists, there are some authors who've made a "best" list twice!

Over at SLJ, both Holly Black and Rainbow Rowell have two "best" fiction titles. Kevin Henkes has a fiction title and a picture book.
At Horn Book, Kevin Henkes also has the same two titles listed, Penny and Her Marble and The Year of Billy Miller.

Can you imagine the joy of having TWO titles on a December "Best Books" list?