Entertainment Books PEOPLE Picks The Best Children's Books of 2022 Robots and lost dogs and ghosts, oh my! Ten standouts to enthrall the younger set. Written by Sue Corbett and edited by Kim Hubbard By People Staff Published on December 20, 2021 10:35 AM Share Tweet Pin Email Trending Videos 01 of 10 The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess by Tom Gauld Fairy-tale tropes are upended in Gauld's charming tale of royal siblings who take turns rescuing each other. (Ages 4-8) Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org 02 of 10 The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee A maid of Chinese ancestry in 1890 Atlanta has a surprising side hustle — as an advice columnist challenging the city's prejudices. (Ages 12-17) Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org 03 of 10 Lotería by Karla Arenas Valenti Clara has been chosen for a game of chance — the Mexican card game Lotería — in this spellbinding story about fate versus free will. (Ages 8-12) Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org 04 of 10 Gone to the Woods by Gary Paulsen In a searing but uplifting memoir, the author of Hatchet tells of the harrowing childhood he overcame. (Ages 8-12) Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org 05 of 10 The Genius Under the Table by Eugene Yelchin What was life like behind the Iron Curtain? Yelchin wittily recounts his hardscrabble upbringing in Cold War Russia. (Ages 10-15) Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org 06 of 10 There's a Ghost in This House by Oliver Jeffers Now you see 'em, now you don't: Translucent overlay pages let readers join a little girl in a spooky (but not too scary) game of hide-and-seek inside the Victorian mansion she calls home. (Ages 4-8) Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org 07 of 10 Me (Moth) by Amber McBride A powerful novel-in-verse about how tragedy transforms the lives of Moth, an orphaned ballerina grieving the loss of her family, and Sani, a depressed Navajo boy in search of his roots. (Ages 12-17) Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org 08 of 10 Bright Star by Yuyi Morales A newborn fawn awakens to a dangerous world in this sumptuously illustrated picture book set in the Sonoran Desert. (Ages 4-8) Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org 09 of 10 Every Little Kindness by Marta Bartolj This "lost dog" story explains the concept of paying it forward wordlessly, as one kindness leads to another until finally: a joyous reunion between girl and pup. (Ages 5-8) Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org 10 of 10 A Sitting in St. James by Rita Williams-Garcia The lives of the privileged and the exploited intertwine in Williams-Garcia's masterpiece of historical fiction set in antebellum Louisiana. (YA) Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org