"What a year for children’s literature. Trimming my top 50 down to 5 (!!) was an exercise in great joy—and extended fits of seeming futility—but the end result feels like a good encapsulation of 2019’s incredible variety and quality.

Maximillian Fly’s dystopian yet hopeful world was clearly built with great love and care by Angie Sage, and its human-cockroach protagonist is alien yet relatable—and perfectly rendered by Sean Welsh Brown’s narration.

My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich is Ibi Zoboi’s love song to 1980s Harlem, young black girls, sci-fi, and Afrofuturism. The protagonist, Ebony-Grace (brilliantly narrated by the author), is a clarion call for imaginative, weird kids everywhere.

If Hermione Granger had gone to music school, you might get something like The Mystwick School of Musicraft—but Jessica Khoury’s world is uniquely her own: the music is the magic, performed by the pitch-perfect New Jersey Youth Orchestra.

New Kid proves that a great graphic novel can be an even better audiobook—but it’s also proof that kid narrators make these listens even more authentic and immersive; Jerry Craft’s deeply affecting story about identity and belonging only feels more authentic because of it.

Foreverywhere consistently made me go 'wowww.' From the trippy music, crafted by Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips, to the quick and lively storytelling by Steve Burns, former host of Blue’s Clues, this listen feels epic and intimate all at once. But like the creators’ shared pen name, StevenSteven, it’s nearly impossible to separate the story beats from the musical ones—and that’s the main reason why it’s my top pick for 2019." —Sean, Audible Editor