We can’t believe 2021 is almost behind us! As we look forward to 2022, the SLJ reviews editors have compiled a series of “favorites” roundups.

In the infinite amount of words we’ve read this year, sometimes there are lines that stick out and linger, burrowing themselves in our memories. Here are some of these unforgettable quotations from this year’s Best Books.

Here’s to more happy reading in the new year!

Mahnaz Dar, Senior Editor, Reference/Professional Reading

"What makes something real? Is it only real if you can touch it? Is it only real if someone else agrees that it is? Is it only real if it lasts forever? Maybe it doesn't matter...however short...whether we remember in ten years, or in twenty...whether anyone acknowledges that it happened or not...it was real to me...and isn't that enough?" —Harmony Becker, Himawari House

Shelley Diaz, Reviews Editor

Al amanecer
Al amanecer guardamos la noche en ollas viejas debajo de piedras y en los tapancos.

At dawn
At dawn we put away the night in old pots under stones and in lofts.

—Humberto Ak’abal, Aquí era el paraíso/Here Was Paradise: Selección de poemas de Humberto Ak’abal/Selected Poems of Humberto Ak’abal

Kimberly Olson Fakih, Senior Editor, Picture Books

“I look from my uncle’s hollow face to the watercress on the table and I am ashamed of being ashamed of my family. I take a bite of the watercress and it bites me back with its spicy, peppery taste. It is delicate and slightly bitter, like Mom’s memories of home.” –Andrea Wang, Watercress

Amanda Mastrull, Editor, YA

"What can seven billion people do that three billion people could not? is the question of my life so far. We are troubled, we are imperfect, but we are many, and we are doomed only if we believe ourselves to be. Our history books contain so much—extravagance and deprivation, catastrophe and industry, triumph and defeat—but they don’t yet include us. Out before us stretches a new century, and its story is still unwritten.” ―Hope Jahren, The Story of More (Adapted for Young Adults): How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here

Florence Simmons, Associate Editor

“Happiness is tricky. Sometimes you have to fight for it. Sometimes, though—the best times—it sneaks up behind you, wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you close.” ― Nicola Yoon, Instructions for Dancing