We recently interviewed Deborah Wooten to mark the release of the fourth edition of Children’s Literature in the Reading Program, coedited by Wooten and Bernice E. Cullinan.

Members can find the interview, conducted by the former president of the Children’s Literature and Reading Special Interest Group, Terrell A. Young, in the latest digital edition of Reading Today.

But for members and nonmembers alike, Wooten provided the following list of 10 titles that should be found in your classroom library to help encourage an appreciation for the creativity, inspiration, and power found in children’s and young adult literature:

A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin, by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2013)

The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus, by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet (Eerdmans Books for Young People, 2014)

Locomotive, by Brian Floca (Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books, 2013)

Dead End in Norvelt, by Jack Gantos (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011)

Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman, by Kathleen Krull and David Diaz (HMH Books for Young Readers, 2000)

Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon, by Steve Sheinkin (Flash Point, 2012)

Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night, by Joyce Sidman and Rick Allen (HMH Books for Young Readers, 2010)

The Pilot and the Little Prince: The Life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, by Peter Sis (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014)

Migrant, by Maxine Trottier and Isabelle Arsenault (Groundwood Books, 2011)

Parrots Over Puerto Rico, by Cindy Trumbore and Susan L. Roth (Lee & Low Books, 2013)