By Alice Walker
32 pages; HarperCollins

The most necessary kids' book of the year, Why War Is Never a Good Idea (HarperCollins), reveals through Alice Walker's hard-hitting words ("War has bad manners / War eats everything / In its path") and Stefano Vitale's sunny-with-a-chance-of-destruction imagery what is so enchanting about a world at peace, and how much we are poised to lose now.

— Cathleen Medwick