The Top 10 Everything of 2009

Two-time Newbery Medal winner Lowry tells a positively beautiful story of a young girl whose dad has just returned from war. The action takes place in one day, mostly in the woods, when the father gives his daughter a crow call. "Daddy, daddy," she whispers to herself. "Saying it feels new ... He has been gone so long." The lifelike illustrations ground the story in reality. In a postscript, Lowry writes, "The details of this story are true. They happened in 1945 to me and my father. But parents and children groping toward understanding each other — that happens to everyone."