2023 gift books

Looking for a great gift book for your family? Each year, WORLD reviewers recommend hundreds of books for all ages. Below you’ll find our top gift book selections for your family and friends—books to make you think, laugh, and read late into the night! Most of all, we hope these books will encourage your family and friends to love God more deeply and savor more of the wonderful world He has made.

Note: Some of these books have objectionable or challenging material. Please read linked reviews and cautions to make sure each selection is right for you and your readers.

Books for Children

Classics

• Urchin of the Riding Stars, The Mistmantle Chronicles by M.I. McAllister

• Truth in the Tinsel (ebook only) by Amanda White

• Jotham’s Journey by Arnold Ytreeide

• A Chameleon, a Boy and a Quest by J.A. Myhre

• The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson

Ages 4–8

• Frog’s Rainy Day Story and Other Tales by Michael and Sarah Dowling

• Lucy and the Saturday Surprise by Melissa Kruger

• The Test of Lionhood by Kevin Sorbo

• The Treasure by Marty Machowski (for families to read with children)

• God, You Are by William R. Osborne (for families to read with children)

Ages 9–12

• The Really Radical Book for Kids by Champ Thornton

• The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh

• Jack Zulu and the Waylander’s Key by S.D. Smith and J.C. Smith

• This Seat’s Saved by Heather Holleman

• Sacred Seasons by Danielle Hitchen (for families to read with children)

Ages 12–16

• Devotion (Young Readers Edition) by Adam Makos

• Watership Down: The Graphic Novel illustrated by Joe Sutphin (see review and cautions for the original novel.)

• The Arrow and the Crown by Emma Fox

• Heartwood Mountain: The Adventures of Wilder Good by S.J. Dahlstrom

• What if? 2 by Randall Munroe

See all our children’s book reviews.

Books for Adults

Biography

• Elisabeth Elliot: A Life by Lucy S.R. Austin

• Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo

• The People’s Justice by Amul Thapar

• Signals of Transcendence by Os Guiness

• Saved by Benjamin Hall

History

• The Wager by David Grann

• Remaking the World by Andrew Wilson

• Banana Ball by Jesse Cole with Don Yaeger

• Palestine 1936 by Oren Kessler

• Redeemer President by Allen C. Guelzo (reprint)

Fiction

• Godmersham Park by Gill Hornby

• The Caretaker by Ron Rash

• Broker of Lies by Steven James

• The House of Love and Death by Andrew Klavan

• Artifice by Sharon Cameron

Theology/Applied Theology

• Every Moment Holy edited by Douglas McKelvey

• Digital Liturgies by Samuel James

• You Are a Theologian by Jen Wilkin & J.T. English

• Called to Cultivate by Chelsea Patterson Sobolik

• Humility by Gavin Ortlund

See all of WORLD’s adult book reviews.

More Gift Ideas

The World and Everything in It Classic Book of the Month selections for 2023

• January: Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
• February: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (plus Darwin Comes to Africa)
• March: Abraham Lincoln by Allen Guelzo
• April: Humility by Andrew Murray
• May: Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• June: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• July: The Chosen by Chaim Potok
• August: Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen
• September: Uncommon by Tony Dungy and Nathan Whitaker
• October: Surprised by Oxford by Caroline Weber
• November: Unpacking Forgiveness by Chris Brauns
• December: Urchin of the Riding Stars, The Mistmantle Chronicles by M.I. McAllister

Adult Books of the Year for 2023

• Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen
• Elisabeth Elliot: A Life by Lucy S.R. Austen
• Being Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn
• The Worry-Free Parent by Sissy Goff
• Critical Dilemma by Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer
• The Wager by David Grann

See the Dec. 2 Books Issue of WORLD Magazine for honorable mentions

Children’s Books of the Year for 2023

• Nonfiction winners
• Fiction winners
• Picture book winners