The Flower
by John Light and Lisa Evans
A boy named Brigg comes across a strange book at the library with a note forbidding anyone to read it. Of course, he can't resist, and when he opens it he finds that it's filled with pictures of colorful things called flowers, which Brigg has never seen before. The Flower is a deceptively simple gem of a book.

Grumpy Bird
by Jeremy Tankard
This refreshing, funny debut picture book is about a bird who wakes up on the wrong side of the nest. He's in such a bad mood, he doesn't even feel like flying, so he starts walking. Pretty soon, Sheep falls into step with him, and then Rabbit, Beaver, and Fox decide to join their friends. Before he knows it, Bird is laughing with his buddies, his bad mood having fluttered away.

The Magic Rabbit
by Annette Leblanc Cate
In her first book, Annette LeBlanc Cate tells an inspiring, amusing tale about friendship and illustrates her story with intricate black-and-white drawings. Ray is a magician, and his assistant bunny is his best friend. But one day, the two get separated in a crowd downtown. How will Bunny ever find Ray again?

Mucumber McGee and the Half-Eaten Hot Dog
by Patrick Loehr
With hilarious rhyming text and wonderful illustrations, Patrick Loehr makes a remarkable entrance into the world of children's literature with this debut cautionary picture book. If you were absolutely famished and the only food you could find was an old "and wrinkled and lumpy and lonely and cold" half-eaten hot dog, would you pop it in your mouth?

Not a Box
by Antoinette Portis
Antoinette Portis has fond memories of sitting in a plain cardboard box with her sister and imagining all kinds of different scenarios. Inspired by that memory, she created this winning book. Depicted in simple line drawings, a rabbit stands beside a box and imagines it as a sports car, a mountain, a rocket, and more.

WINNER
Wolf! Wolf!
by John Rocco
This clever take on Aesop's fable "The Boy Who Cried 'Wolf!'" is told from the wolf's perspective and is set in China, thus John Rocco's gorgeous Asian-flavored illustrations. Too old to chase animals, the wolf tends a vegetable garden, but when he keeps hearing a shepherd yell, "Wolf!" he investigates and hatches a plan to take home a little meat.