The Margaret Wise Brown Board Book Award
Developed and administered by the Children’s Book Committee (CBC), the Margaret Wise Brown Board Book Award honors the legacy of the late award-winning children’s book author and her brilliant contributions to the canon of children’s literature.
The award was created to highlight the impact of high-quality board books on the learning and development of babies and toddlers. Engagement with board books provides stimulation in support of brain development, enhances visual and memorization skills, imparts an understanding of how the world works, bonds infants and toddlers with adults, and is a cornerstone for developing early literacy skills. Board book construction, which enables toddlers to turn the pages themselves, creates independence in a young child as a reader.
Given every two years, this prize was awarded for the first time in Spring 2023 to books published in 2022 and 2021. Please see below for the Spring 2025 winners. You can also download a copy of the CBC’s Best Board Books for 2025 for books published in 2023 and 2024. Please send candidates for the award directly to:
The Children’s Book Committee,
Bank Street College of Education,
610 West 112th Street, New York, New York 10025.
Note: we are currently only considering work published in 2025 for our 2025/2026 award.
2025 Award Winners
 Gold Medal |
 Gold Medal |
 Silver Medal |
Gold Medals
- Below the Ice by Michaël Escoffier, illustrated by Ella Charbon (Peter Pauper Press)
- We All Play by Julie Flett (Greystone Books)
Silver Medal
- Is That the Bus? by Libby Koponen, illustrated by Katie Mazeika (Charlesbridge)
News Coverage
Bank Street Announces 2025 Margaret Wise Brown Board Book Award Winners
School Library Journal, February 2025
About Margaret Wise Brown
Margaret Wise Brown attended Bank Street’s Cooperative School for Teachers in the 1930s. She studied under Bank Street founder Lucy Sprague Mitchell, learning new theories on childhood education which emphasized learning by doing. As part of her Bank Street studies, Margaret took a course in writing for preschool students and her skills were further developed as a member of the Bank Street Writers Lab.
Margaret’s most memorable book, Goodnight Moon, published in 1947, is considered a classic gift for young children. Although board books had not yet been developed when Goodnight Moon was first written, the book—with its beautiful rhythmic language—is a key text in nurturing an infant’s connection to books and creating lifelong readers.
Children’s literature historian, author, and critic Leonard S. Marcus, author of Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon, noted: “She virtually invented the picture book for very young children.”
