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I can't help it-- I might read some more good books in the next week (I said when I started putting this together a week-- or two?-- ago), but I am too anxious to share with you my FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR not to start now. As a librarian I feel the need to point out that this is MY Top Books, not THE Best Books. I'm not speaking from my professional knowledge here, necessarily, but from my personal responses as a READER. Who is also a reasonably well-read adult, even though most of these books are directed at people much younger than me, so they MAY or MAY NOT be good choices for your kids. I just loved them. And, since I managed to read the Newbery winner before it won for the past couple years, I've been trying to do it again, so I sought out a lot of books I wouldn't necessarily pick up on my own because they were getting buzz. And truthfully, most of those buzzy books I could see, from an intellectual standpoint, were very good, and would make some readers very happy as well, but I personally was somewhat ambivalent. On the other hand I know very well some of my favorite books of the year aren't exactly Newbery quality, but I LOVE them more. So it's those LOVE ones that go on this list.
A couple years ago, as I had read enough books actually published that year to pull it off, I decided to make my Top Ten Books of the Year list actually of BOOKS PUBLISHED THAT YEAR. But I missed talking about the NOT published that year books that I loved, so the next year I added some more categories. This year... well, dang. I have read a LOT OF GOOD BOOKS this year. I am doing my best to include as many of them as possible in this post, mostly by making new categories every so often, and yet I'm still leaving off quite a few great ones. So let's begin:
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Top 10 2010 Books I Loved in 2010, not counting some series books I'll get to later
1.Turner, Megan Whalen. A Conspiracy of Kings. YA historical-fantasy-dealie-thing. I swear I'm not one of those crazy people (looking at about half the people who read me--being the book-world half) who worships at Megan Whalen Turner's feet. I enjoyed The Thief a lot, but didn't LURVE it. I enjoyed Queen of Attolia even more, but still found the politics confusing and the romance creepy (I'M SORRY! I know they're perfect for each other, but STILL. It's CREEPY). I loved King of Attolia, and started to understand where the obsession comes from. And the series DOES keep getting better, because this one is my favorite YET! Maybe it's because I've always been fond of Sophos and was glad to see what's become of him. And the plot is twisty enough to be interesting but carrying-you-forward enough to not get lost. And all the characters are, as usual, their awesome selves.
2. Collins, Suzanne. Mockingjay. YA dystopian. "Number 2?" I asked myself as I was attempting to put these in some sort of order. "It was great, but was it really THAT great?" Yes, I decided. Yes, because it hooked me right back into the obsession, thrilled me and shocked me, and made me instantly fall back in love with a fictional 17-year-old I'd long since given up as doomed. But I already talked about all that here (very spoilery).
3. Brennan, Sarah Rees. The Demon's Covenant. YA urban fantasy/horror. Why is this sequel to The Demon's Lexicon awesome? For all the same reasons as the first-- compelling characters, witty writing, the ability to make you both laugh AND cry. But as it is told from Mae's point of view, you get two bonuses: a) the discovery that Mae's collection of Awesome Literary T-Shirts is even more extensive than previously realized; and b) more screen-time for her brother, which makes this book funnier than the first. Jamie's ability to throw out self-depreciating one-liners every time he opens his mouth makes any book he's in an awesome thing indeed. Not that it wasn't awesome otherwise.
4. Wood, Maryrose. The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book I: The Mysterious Howling. MG, um, fantasy I think? Humorous Victorian Melodrama? Well, whatever. This book was lots of fun, but what truly elevates it to #4 on this list is MISS PENELOPE LUMLEY. Our heroine is, without a doubt, the best new character of 2010. She is my latest literary girl-crush, and if the rest of the series goes on like this I clearly foresee her taking a spot among my Top Five Literary Girl-Crushes EVER, up there with Blossom Culp and Sophie Hatter if not quite dethroning Anne Shirley (because really, who can). WHY? Because upon graduating from the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, she gets a job as a governess, only to discover that her charges have apparently been raised by wolves, and does this bother her? Not a whit. She hits it off immediately with the children. It's those HUMAN-raised people who are causing her concern. But only concern, because dangit, she can handle whatever anybody throws at her.She's like a more-human Mary Poppins, a more-interesting Jane Eyre, a... just awesome person and you need to meet her NOW SO GO READ IT.
5. Gidwitz, Adam. A Tale Dark and Grimm. MG folktale-retelling/dark fantasy/horror. The first sentence is, "Once upon a time, fairy tales were awesome." And I get stuck on that word, "awesome." What did I think of the book? It's awesome. Why? Because it's awesome. It's the best way to describe it, I swear! It's a retelling of several of the gorier lesser-known Grimm tales, woven together into a single narrative, and narrated in a way that, well, is like reading someone actually TELLING it. A teller who breaks in every so often to comment on what's going on, or warn the faint of heart that a scary part is coming up. It's like experiencing a gripping fun storytelling session in book form! And did I mention fun? Seriously fun. Maybe the reason my vocabulary has been reduced to "awesome" is that it brought out the kid in me-- awed, excited, and ready for something a little weird...
6.Bunce, Elizabeth C. Starcrossed. YA fantasy. This book is FUN. It's everything a fantasy-lover would want in a book-- maybe a little light on romance-- and nothing they wouldn't. The worldbuilding is fascinating. The action exciting. The politics complex but not off-putting. The heroine complex and cool. I hesitate to call her a female Eugenides because NOBODY is an ANYTHING Eugenides (except Eugenides), but it's on the right track. Eugenides-light, maybe. This is the first in a series, and it deserves to take off, among Graceling fans, among Queen's Thief fans, among anyone who likes their high fantasy more intriguey than hack-and-slash but still edge-of-your-seat-ing.
7.Erskine, Kathryn. Mockingbird. MG serious realistic fiction. YES, you read that right. I put one of those on this list, I did. I have a few personal buttons that serious realistic fiction can push for me occasionally. Autistic Spectrum Disorders. Sibling death. What about... girl with Asperger's deals with the death of a sibling? See that? Just that description is enough to make me sniffly. Actually reading this book made me bawl the whole way through. AND I ENJOYED EVERY MOMENT OF IT. I don't care for your typical GRIEF book, but if it looks at grief in a DIFFERENT WAY-- say, from the point of view of someone who has trouble processing EVERYDAY emotions as it is-- I'm more open. Obviously. Because I read this. And loved it. It's got humor too, which is important-- humor makes pathos JAB more.
8. Cushman, Karen. Alchemy and Meggy Swann. MG historical fiction. Karen Cushman does historical fiction RIGHT. Her dialogue is, as far as I know, historically accurate, but it crackles with life and personality. Her descriptions are rich and put you right into the setting, without feeling like a block of educational text you want to skip over. It struck me, reading this, that this would be a great crossover bait title for fantasy fans-- because really, it feels like reading fantasy. And Meggy's father is an alchemist. That's just a wizard whose spells don't always work quite right, right? But don't get me wrong-- I will sweep up a Cushman no matter what the topic. This is one of my favorites by her, not quite as up there as Catherine Called Birdy, but at least on par with The Ballad of Lucy Whipple.
9. Marchetta, Melina. Finnikin of the Rock. YA epic fantasy. I am some kind of freak among YA librarians for finding Jellicoe Road merely all right. So, in order to save face, I gamely admitted that MAYBE I might appreciate Marchetta better if I tried an all-out fantasy instead of a mostly-realistic-magic-realism-thing, because that could be entirely different, yes? IT WORKED. I definitely appreciated this one. Rich and complex without being boggy, dark without being hopeless. You know, there are lots of heavy real-world themes in this, about the plights of refugees and the fates of people under cruel governments. If she'd written realistic fiction about that, it would have been dank and depressing and who would want to read about it? But explore those same themes in fantasy, and suddenly you CARE.
10. Bow, Erin. Plain Kate. Young YA fantasy. Orphan girl sells her shadow, only to discover that her shadow is going to be used for NEFARIOUS PURPOSES, and not having a shadow is weirder than you expect it to be, anyway. This is rich and scary and sad and funny, and it has gypsies. They're not CALLED gypsies, but they're still interesting, and for all intents and purposes... um, anyway.
EDIT: Before I managed to finish and post this list, I also managed to finish reading another book which as it turns out also ought to be on this list. Yes, even with everything else going on this week, I finished it, which tells you something about how I didn't want to set it aside... but, I don't want to knock poor Plain Kate off the list after all this time, so let's put Duane, Diane. A Wizard of Mars at number, oh ,6.5? Young YA science fantasy. Oh how I love this series and all its L'Engleness. I wasn't actually expecting to like this one as much as I did-- it's so friggin' FAT (I really hate long books anymore), and she does tend toward weird side things that could have been cut out, and I'm not big on the more classic-science-fictiony turns the series takes, AND YET... I totally NEVER expect to like these books as much as I do. They always surprise me and make me love them all over again. SOOO good.
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Moving on to books that came out LAST year...
Top 10 2009 Books I Read in 2010!
1.Bray, Libba. Going Bovine. YA...I haven't the slightest idea what genre to put this in. Dark humor. Rather fantastic (as in, "containing fantasy elements"). Contemporary, but TWISTED. Don't let the fact that this is in the second list of books fool you: this IS my NUMBER ONE BOOK I read this year. Will probably make my as-of-yet-theoretical list of FAVORITE BOOKS EVER once I reread it (you always have to reread to be sure). It's bizarre and hilarious and amazingly put-together. It jumped out at me with "You Are Reading Something Special Now"-ness from the very first chapter. I still hesitate to recommend it to the unsuspecting, because it's definitely an unusual taste, but those who will appreciate it... will REALLY appreciate it. I discussed this more in-depth here.
2. Larbalestier, Justine. Liar. YA psychological thriller/horror. See above link, in which I talk about this one, too. This is a head-trip. AND THAT'S COOL. It will FREAK YOU OUT. And it's SUPPOSED to.
3. Cooper, Michelle. A Brief History of Montmaray. YA historical fiction. Actually alternate-historical. Not TOO alternate, just that there's an entire fictional country one-island-large in it. Anyway. Do you know how badly I want to send this book back to my 15-year-old self? You'll see, later in this post, that it inspired me to create a whole new award for the books I've read this year. Because this book IS teen-me. Cooper has somehow taken the disparaged bits of my wild mid-teen imagination and created a genuine story out of them. There's a rock off the coast of Europe, an independent sovereignty, which, after most of the population got wiped out in WWI, has about the same number of royals as subjects, and they're all pretty much like family, and the royals are just as poor as the subjects anyway, and it's told by one of the princesses, and WWII is about to start, and ... and... uh, I can't describe this in a straight line. You should JUST READ IT, ANYWAY. It totally has not gotten the attention it deserves.
4.Heiligman, Deborah. Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith. YA biography. Normally I forget to keep track of the nonfiction I read in the year (in part because browsing through books like "Potty Training Tips and Troubleshooting!" is hardly what I think of when people ask what I've read lately). But this double-biography is narrative enough that I had no problem putting it on my list of books-I've-read, and it DEFINITELY belongs here on the list of books-I've-loved. Really, it reads like a story, and it's a compelling story, and I loved reading about the Darwins and I loved THEM, and it's all just a sweet and beautiful love story, really. You're just learning actual history/biography/science at the same time.
5. Barnett, Mac. The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity: The Brixton Brothers, Book 1. MG mystery/satire. Have I mentioned that Mac Barnett is ridiculously cute in every possible way? He also writes a pretty hilarious spoof. I love my Nancy Drew, but that doesn't mean I can't laugh at it, too. See the link in the Going Bovine note for more on this one, too.
6. Dolamore, Jaclyn. Magic Under Glass. YA fantasy/gothic-romance. I'm not sure about that "gothic romance" part though, because when I think of gothic romances I think of stories a lot heavier and more dismal than this, which instead was a whole lot of FUN. Sure, it's got all the trappings of gothic romance: (alternate in-which-magic-is-known-to-exist) Victorian setting, young woman taken in and offered work by a handsome mysterious stranger, something amiss in his secluded manor, deadly secrets; also, there's a fairy prince trapped in a clockwork piano-playing man, a lot of (fun-)scary black magic happening, and the love triangle is decent for once. Good times.
7. Choldenko, Gennifer. Al Capone Shines My Shoes. Older-MG-or-young-YA-not-really-sure historical fiction. I loved the first book, Al Capone Does My Shirts, but I quite possibly liked this one even more. Still got the cool setting-- Alcatraz-- and the well-developed autistic character, but this one seemed a little heavier on the mystery, intrigue, and sense of danger. Possibly because Capone was more directly involved this time. Also, is it bad that I got a bit of a crush on Choldenko's Capone? Probably.
8. Stewart, Trenton Lee. The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma. MG mystery-adventure. This is blatantly the last book in the Mysterious Benedict Society trilogy. That blatancy-of-finality rather unnerved me, actually. Not that I think it ought to have gone on forever, but somehow I wasn't expecting that. But as usual, I loved these funny young geniuses and their puzzling things out and their lovely accepting-yet-imperfect relationships. The thing that stuck out for me most in this book, besides the finality, is discovering Constance's backstory-- which stuck with me rather powerfully.
9. Lin, Grace. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. MG fantasy/folktale-retelling. This is like A Tale Dark and Grimm, in that it's the weaving together of threads of actual folktales into a single storyline, told in a very You-Are-Hearing-It way. But it's very UNlike that book also, in that it is not nearly so violent. Also, the folktales are Chinese instead of German. And there are beautiful illustrations. But do not let the lack of violence fool you into believing that there is a lack of excitement, because it's still like getting swept off in the voice of a master storyteller.
10. Ostow, Micol. So Punk Rock: And Other Ways to Disappoint Your Mother. YA humorous realism. Story of some boys at a Jewish day school who form a band and become locally-famous for their punk rendition of "Hava Nagilah," and it made me laugh at least once every page, and I even got a bit of a crush on our hero, Ari (after all, as he's the one telling the story, he's the one who kept making me laugh). Also has pictures! The return of illustrated novels is interesting to me, although I'm not always a fan of pictures myself (because they mess up the pictures in my head).
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There's that. But see, in effort to squeeze in as many unique titles onto these lists as possible, I decided to shift a few titles that OUGHT to have been on those lists into this list instead:
Top Series and Companion Books I Discovered In Their Entireties This Year, Which Include Books From '09 or '10, But I Can't Very Well Not Mention the OTHER Books By Those Authors, So to Keep Them From Monopolizing the Lists With Their Seriality, Um, Now They're In This List Instead. In Alphabetical Order By Author, Because I Am Unable To Rank Series Because They Have Too Many Variables, So There. Anyway There Are Only Four.
Coombs, Kate. The Runaway Princess and The Runaway Dragon. MG humorous fairy-tale fantasy. I feel like I should put a disclaimer here, but really I don't needs should. See, I read these books in JANUARY, nearly a year ago-- I had seen Kate Coombs on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
enchantedinkpot and thought she seemed cool-- and I loved them then, and THEN I dropped the author a message to say thank-you-because-I-loved-them, and anyway over the course of this year and a lot of blog-comment-exchanges and mutual-followings, I believe Kate is now an actual virtual friend of mine. (Also I just wanted to say "actual virtual"). But I'm not just putting her books on my list because she's my friend, is what I'm saying! The books came first! And Runaway Dragon should be considered about number 4.5 on the 2009 list! Maybe even tied for #4! These two books are that delightful brand of fantasy that twists all your typical fairytale tropes into something new, and I generally MEAN new, and not just twisting-the-same-ways-everyone-else-twisted-it (which is common). I loved the odd little details and surprises. It's a very Enchanted Forest Chronicles feel, but a little better actually because there are less talking cats. That may be a personal thing, though.EDIT: I got these books for Christmas, nyah nyay nyah!
Moriarty, Jaclyn. The Ashbury High books. YA... uh, dang, these defy classification. The format is epistolary-plus, told entirely through notes, emails, memos, transcripts, and school assignments. They appear on the surface to be contemporary realism/school-story, but then something so completely outlandish will happen that "realism" seems a little off. They make you laugh, out loud and explosively and over and over again, but then they'll delve into the heartwrenchingly tragic (The Murder Of Bindy Mackenzie personally brought back many painful memories for me. Which isn't to say I didn't adore it, mind you), so you can't quite call them comedies either. Reading The Ghosts Of Ashbury High, which should fall about 8.5 on the 2010 list, I spent so much time GUFFAWING and making Jason look at me funny that several times I told myself, "Okay, it can't be THAT funny. Please try to contain your reactions to a grin or an amused snort," only to completely lose it again one sentence later. And then the next chapter would go off onto a serious history of the plight of Irish convicts in colonial Australia and for the next ten pages I wouldn't crack a smile. There really is nothing else like this out there. It's weird. In a good way.
Springer, Nancy. The Enola Holmes Mysteries. MG historical mystery. Chronicling the adventures of Sherlock Holmes' kid sister (you didn't know he had a kid sister? Shows what you know) as she gallivants around London finding missing persons and hiding from her brothers (who want to send her to boarding school) and generally being awesome, these are ADDICTIVE little books. As it only took me a day to swallow each (and this is on MY schedule-- someone without toddlers could do it in a couple hours), leaving me all the more ravenous for the next one, I finally had to take them out two at a time-- if you're doing it, just go for all six at once and call it a multi-volume book. They are great fun--and shockingly gritty for middle grade (I had at least one "I can't believe it WENT there!" moment per book)-- and I always feel like I'm learning something new and fascinating about Victorian London, like that they had department stores in the 1880s. And The Case of the Gypsy Goodbye was such a SATISFYING conclusion, leaving me actually rather sappy about it, that it totally should be number 4.5 on the 2010 list. I read it twice. I love short books.
Westerfeld, Scott. Leviathan and Behemoth. Young YA alt-history/steampunk. The aforementioned Kate Coombs recently posted a thought about who the audience for steampunk actually is. One question is, how much can kids get into alternative history with a limited knowledge of real history? And I admit I'm unable to figure that out from these books, because, people who know me personally, remember the Senior Synthesis Vienna Class/Trip? In which we spent a great deal of time studying the Hapsburgs and the roots of WWI? In college? Yeah, I have a bit of historical background knowledge, and I TOTALLY admit it's part of why I love this series so much. Because *squee* it's about the roots of WWI! In a universe in which Franz Ferdinand left behind a teenage son who's actually got a claim on the emperor-ity (throne? Is it called "throne" when it's an emperor?), and is also one of the heroes of the story! And did we mention the Central Powers are all Clankers, who build huge mechanical, um, everythings, while the Allies are Darwinists, who breed bizarre working creatures out of advances in genetic engineering you've never thought possible (or, for that matter, desirable? Some of those beasties are pretty creepy)? COME ON! You KNOW you're dying to read this, now! And for the record, Leviathan should be number, hmm, maybe even 1.5 on the 2009 list, and Behemoth like 7.5 on the 2010 list. Because I read a lot of good 2010 books.
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Well, now that we got the new books out of the way, let's jump right down to
Top Books That Came Out BEFORE I WAS EVEN BORN That I Finally Read In 2010!
Oddly, if you wondered, I didn't read anything particularly interesting from the in-between time this year, that isn't already accounted for in the Series-and-Companion-Books list. So we can ignore that entirely.
1. Enright, Elizabeth. The Saturdays. MG humorous realism. So, when this showed up at #51 on Fuse #8's Top 100 Children's Novels Poll this spring, I said, "Look, a book I've actually never heard of!" At which point![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
punterschlagen yelled, "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! I TOTALLY TOLD YOU TO READ THIS BOOK OVER A DECADE AGO!" This is true. I clearly remember the conversation we had about Elizabeth Enright, in which I said OMGIcan'tbelievesomeoneelsehasactuallyreadGoneAwayLake, and she said IfyoulikedthatonethenyouHAVEtoreadherbooksabouttheMelendys, and... somehow the fact that the first Melendy book had the title The Saturdays never made it into my brain. SO I fixed that this year. And she's right, it's good stuff. Light on actual plot arc, but this is more than made up for by the great characters and their oh-so-witty dialogue. SO FUN.
2. Smith, Dodie. I Capture the Castle. YA-ish (technically this was before YA was invented, but for all intents and purposes...) realism I guess? Melodramatic realism? Anyway, grabbed this one on audiobook for a trip to an out-of-state wedding-- figured I'd catch up on some books-I-should-have-read-before reading, and as this one had been mentioned both in reviews of the aforementionedly-awesome Brief History of Montmaray AND once or twice by the also-aforementionedly-awesomepunterschlagen, I gave it a go, and fell in love in the first sentence. VOICE. They use this book to teach writing students about voice, don't they? Well, they SHOULD. Our narrator has the sort of voice that is on the one hand so unique and clever and marvelous, and on the other hand so believably innocent/naive and ACTUAL TEENAGE GIRL-y, that-- well I don't know what "that." It's just very well done, that's all.
3. Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Sign of Four. Victorian pulp mystery from before books had age levels (I say in denial that it probably ought to be considered Adult. Even though they do often catalog these in J. But seriously, all your characters are adults. And your hero shoots cocaine. It's adult). I got bombarded with Sherlock Holmes interpretations in a relatively short period of time this year (see #3 last section, example), which forced me to my own bookshelves to do some rereading of the originals, when here I discover there was this WHOLE OTHER BOOK which I had never gotten to stuck in the back of my volume of A Study in Scarlett, maybe because I got annoyed with the second half of Study in Scarlett and put it away too soon (he should NEVER LET ANYBODY WHO ISN'T WATSON NARRATE. Thank you.) And what a nice surprise, because I totally loved this one, although I loved it best for a really stupid reason that Holmes himself would DISDAIN me for. This is the one where Watson meets his wife, which means he spends about half the book getting all sappy about it, and I couldn't help thinking he was doing it on purpose just to annoy Holmes, like, "Looky here, I get to be the ROMANTIC HERO of this book! Not the chronically underappreciated sidekick! THE ROMANTIC HERO! WATCH ME PLAY THIS UP! I GET THE GIRL!" (Holmes: "You're being emotional again. Please stop." Watson: "YOU ARE SUCH A FREAKING ROBOT.") As a hopeless Dr. Watson fangirl, I approve of this move.
4. Raskin, Ellen. The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel). MG mystery. So, you've all read The Westing Game, right? If not, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU GO FIX THAT. I had never read anything else by Raskin, and decided that needed to be fixed, too. Now, the mystery-weaving is not nearly as brilliant as in her more-famous book (but how many mysteries ARE?), but this one's still a lot of puzzling and ridiculous fun. I'll be honest, though, I might not have found it very memorable until I got to... the epilogue. Really the last section, which FUNCTIONS as an epilogue even though it isn't called that. The epilogue of this book has to be the Greatest Epilogue In the History of Literature. It is the most hilariously understated listing of What-Happened-to-Everybody anyone has ever written. Of course you have to read the whole book to APPRECIATE the brilliance that is the epilogue, but that's not hard. I know it's strange when the only part of a book you really feel like talking about is the epilogue, but it's THAT AWESOME.
5. Sayers, Dorothy L. The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries. Um, mysteries, duh. And yes, ACTUALLY in the Adult section. See, I've told you many times how hard it is to convince me to go into the Adult Fiction section, but if you come up with just the right hook, I'm there. And for these books,sarahtales wins, for describing them as "Bertie Wooster Solves Mysteries." Okay she got me. SEE? Just got to find the hook. Anyway, have you noticed a lot of mysteries on the list this year? I'm not sure if it's really a lot, proportionately to other years, or not, but I noticed, suddenly remembering how mysteries were actually my first literary love. Sometimes I actually think I settled for writing fantasy because I'm not good enough at plotting to write mysteries.*
6. I was going to just make it a top five for this list, but I can't avoid giving a shout-out to: Aiken, Joan. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. MG-young-YA melodrama. Because I've been waiting TWENTY YEARS to read this. I'm afraid it isn't nearly as high on this list as it WOULD have been had I actually read it twenty years ago, because I was in the MOOD for orphan melodramas back then, and am not so much now. BUT SERIOUSLY.
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And now for something completely different:
TOP PICTURE BOOKS AND EASY READERS I discovered in 2010.
It is perhaps wrong of me to lump these two into one list. I in fact did a WHOLE FAMILY PROGRAM a few weeks ago in which I EXPLAINED why Picture Books and Easy Readers are not the same thing for part of it. A Picture Book is a book in which words and pictures (and sometimes just pictures) work together to tell a complete story. They may be for any age level, and the words may be on any reading level. An Easy Reader is a book written with a limited vocabulary and simple structure, specifically for beginning readers. It may also have a lot of pictures, but they are not necessarily as integral as they are in a picture book. THERE. Stepping down off the soap box to continue, in author order because I just don't FEEL like ranking, although I am including exactly ten, if you count the series as one book:
Barton, Chris. Shark vs. Train. Picture Book, preschool/younger elementary and up. DUDE. It's just my favorite picture book this year. I know I've mentioned it already.
Birdsall, Jeanne. Flora's Very Windy Day. Picture Book, eh, preschool/young elementary too. Honestly, I did not include this just to makevovat gawk and say "What, she's done a PICTURE BOOK TOO?" Anyway, much of the credit here belongs to illustrator Matt Phelan, too, for these gorgeously buoyant pictures that make you feel like YOU'RE about to get swept up in a gust of something, too. It's a really lovely little book all over.
DiCamillo, Kate and Alison McGhee. Bink and Gollie. Uh, sort of on the upper-end of Easy Reader, longer side of Picture Book. It's like Frog and Toad, but with female humans instead of male amphibians! Humorous friendship expressed in simple perfection.
Lehman, Barbara. The Red Book and Rainstorm mostly, but pretty much everything I've seen by her. Picture Books, elementary. She is my visual-artist soul mate. Linking you back to the post where I first gushed about these.
Lobel, Arnold. Frog and Toad Together. Easy Reader. Okay, so I actually "discovered" this something like 28 years ago. But I didn't fully appreciate it until I read it again this year. This storytelling is BRILLIANT! So deceptively simple. "Cookies" is just a perfect little story no matter what your age.
Macaulay, David. Black and White. Picture book, I'd say upper elementary. Very complex. Linking you back to that picture book post again.
Stein, David Ezra. Interrupting Chicken. Picture book, preschool, probably early elementary too. I really didn't mean to keep laughing so hard. It's kind of predictable after awhile, shouldn't that mean it stops being as funny? Nope. It doesn't stop being funny.
Tan, Shaun. Tales From Outer Suburbia. Very long picture book bordering on "graphic novel" although it's not really that, either; upper-elementary to adult. This book is, should I have actually tried to rank ALL the books I read this year without separating them into lists (don't make me though), definitely up in my top 5. Such a psychedelic wonderful dream! Linking to where I first tell you about THIS one, which includes a link to a sample of the book. Not the same picture book link as the other picture book links in this list, by the way.
Van Allsburg, Chris. The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Picture book, upper elementary and up. I also explained THIS one before, in that post where I gushed about picture books, but it definitely bears repeating. This is just A WORK OF ART. THIS is how pictures tell stories, SERIOUSLY.
Willems, Mo. The Elephant and Piggie books. Easy readers. Seriously, people. Mo Willems keeps winning Geisel awards-- what we should all just accept is that this is because he IS the new Dr. Seuss. HE IS A FRIGGIN' GENIUS. How you can do SO much with such a limited vocabulary and some deceptively simple illustrations? It must be seen to be believed. My coworker who does the young child storytimes also just discovered these a few months ago, and we spent some time just gushing back and forth over them.
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Well, that's all for ranking lists. But Finally, to sum everything up, I am now proud to introduce:
The Why I Need a Time Machine Award, for the books that screamed out YOU WOULD HAVE SO LOVED THIS BOOK WHEN YOU WERE IN THE TARGET AGE RANGE FOR IT! at me as I read, which happened a LOT this year. Maybe it's a zeitgeist thing, as a lot of debut authors are from my generation and all, although that discounts the first author on the list, so the theory is fuzzy. I'm awarding it for every other year-- because that's how they seemed to fall-- from 4th grade (because I can't remember what my particular taste in books WAS before that-- I may not have HAD taste in books then) to 12th grade (by which point I'd already taken to reading things I was way out of the target age range for regularly, so it no longer becomes obvious), and giving my reasons for placing it such.
4th grade: Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes Mysteries, because, hello, smart and spunky young girl solves genuinely dangerous mysteries in a rich historical setting? Yes, please.
6th grade: Jacqueline West's The Shadows: The Books of Elsewhere, which I know didn't make the 2010 top ten up there, but only because I read so many dang good books this year. In 6th grade I had just finished writing a book which involved at one point entering a painting into another world. GUESS WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT. And it involves magical glasses! And it's SCARY! And it has talking cats that actually DIDN'T ANNOY ME!
8th grade: technically, Joan Aiken's The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I know, it's cheating, because it totally was out when I was in 8th grade, but I LOOKED FOR IT EVERYWHERE (already being an Aiken fan, and having read about it on the back of another book) , and could not find it; and when I finally DID read it now, all I could think was DAMN. And I don't even say "damn" usually. 8th grade WAS my orphan melodrama phase! I don't appreciate them nearly so much now! But if forced to pick something that wasn't actually already out back then, I'll take Erin Bow's Plain Kate because it's got gypsies and scary occult happenings and, yes, orphans, and did I mention gypsies...
10th grade: Michelle Cooper's A Brief History of Montmaray: Actually, MOST of the books here made me say "I would have SO loved this as a kid!" But THIS book, on the other hand, made me say "OMG MICHELLE COOPER HIJACKED MY TEENAGED BRAIN!" A castle! Nazis! Ghosts! Crazy people! British nobility! NON-British nobility! NOT true love! Diary format! The only thing she left out was sym-- wait, she DID include sympathetic socialists. THERE WERE EVEN SYMPATHETIC SOCIALISTS! Who IS this Michelle Cooper person, and HOW IS SHE DOING THIS?!
12th grade: Unfortunately, Jane Austen did not come out with any new books this year. So, barring that, I will have to go with Jaclyn Dolamore's Magic Under Glass, because I'd actually developed an appreciation for romances, particularly historical romances that are not hot-and-steamy (note reference to Jane Austen), plus this is all gothicky and has dark magic and intrigue and stuff too, because seriously why would you read a romance that didn't have SOMETHING extra and cool in it.** I would have been secretly swoony over the romance, all the while playing up the fantasy bit to anyone who would have happened to ask about what I was reading.
Absolutely any time because I can't pinpoint exactly when, but YEAH: Adam Gidwitz's A Tale Dark and Grimm. I can't even explain exactly what about it, it just IS. Actually, the VERY BEST time to send this back to young-me would be freshman year college, when we were studying Bettelheim. SERIOUSLY.
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Sooo... thoughts? Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments!*** See something you want to read now? Tell me that too! I would so love to discuss these books with y'all, so don't be shy-- tell me about it! (take notes if you have to!)
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*My subconscious just the other night was behaving oddly on this subject. Yesterday I woke up and started jotting a dream in my dream journal (which is not so much a genuine dream journal as a selection of dreams that strike me as rather story-like, so that I might one day use them as jumping-off points for actual stories, or at least use it as proof to myself that I actually am creative when I'm not thinking too hard about it), only to realize that I ACTUALLY felt like developing this one into more of a proper story form RIGHT THERE, so I wrote two pages worth of scenes, and you know what genre those two pages is threatening to be? Adult mystery. There's no avoiding its adultness-- although there is a class of high school English students involved, the three actual full-blown characters to come out of it are all adults. Technically. Granted, it's the sort of adult fiction I DO occasionally read, along the lines of Douglas Adams (actually I'm pretty sure I was channeling Dirk Gently in this thing. DIRK GENTLY CROSSED WITH BATMAN. How fun is that) or Jasper Fford. So I haven't completely lost it.
**Note: the "extra and cool" in Austen is the humor. Totally, I only read her for the humor. I swear.
***Yes, I already know you disagree with me about Gen/Irene being creepy. Let's move on...
A couple years ago, as I had read enough books actually published that year to pull it off, I decided to make my Top Ten Books of the Year list actually of BOOKS PUBLISHED THAT YEAR. But I missed talking about the NOT published that year books that I loved, so the next year I added some more categories. This year... well, dang. I have read a LOT OF GOOD BOOKS this year. I am doing my best to include as many of them as possible in this post, mostly by making new categories every so often, and yet I'm still leaving off quite a few great ones. So let's begin:
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Top 10 2010 Books I Loved in 2010, not counting some series books I'll get to later
1.Turner, Megan Whalen. A Conspiracy of Kings. YA historical-fantasy-dealie-thing. I swear I'm not one of those crazy people (looking at about half the people who read me--being the book-world half) who worships at Megan Whalen Turner's feet. I enjoyed The Thief a lot, but didn't LURVE it. I enjoyed Queen of Attolia even more, but still found the politics confusing and the romance creepy (I'M SORRY! I know they're perfect for each other, but STILL. It's CREEPY). I loved King of Attolia, and started to understand where the obsession comes from. And the series DOES keep getting better, because this one is my favorite YET! Maybe it's because I've always been fond of Sophos and was glad to see what's become of him. And the plot is twisty enough to be interesting but carrying-you-forward enough to not get lost. And all the characters are, as usual, their awesome selves.
2. Collins, Suzanne. Mockingjay. YA dystopian. "Number 2?" I asked myself as I was attempting to put these in some sort of order. "It was great, but was it really THAT great?" Yes, I decided. Yes, because it hooked me right back into the obsession, thrilled me and shocked me, and made me instantly fall back in love with a fictional 17-year-old I'd long since given up as doomed. But I already talked about all that here (very spoilery).
3. Brennan, Sarah Rees. The Demon's Covenant. YA urban fantasy/horror. Why is this sequel to The Demon's Lexicon awesome? For all the same reasons as the first-- compelling characters, witty writing, the ability to make you both laugh AND cry. But as it is told from Mae's point of view, you get two bonuses: a) the discovery that Mae's collection of Awesome Literary T-Shirts is even more extensive than previously realized; and b) more screen-time for her brother, which makes this book funnier than the first. Jamie's ability to throw out self-depreciating one-liners every time he opens his mouth makes any book he's in an awesome thing indeed. Not that it wasn't awesome otherwise.
4. Wood, Maryrose. The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book I: The Mysterious Howling. MG, um, fantasy I think? Humorous Victorian Melodrama? Well, whatever. This book was lots of fun, but what truly elevates it to #4 on this list is MISS PENELOPE LUMLEY. Our heroine is, without a doubt, the best new character of 2010. She is my latest literary girl-crush, and if the rest of the series goes on like this I clearly foresee her taking a spot among my Top Five Literary Girl-Crushes EVER, up there with Blossom Culp and Sophie Hatter if not quite dethroning Anne Shirley (because really, who can). WHY? Because upon graduating from the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, she gets a job as a governess, only to discover that her charges have apparently been raised by wolves, and does this bother her? Not a whit. She hits it off immediately with the children. It's those HUMAN-raised people who are causing her concern. But only concern, because dangit, she can handle whatever anybody throws at her.She's like a more-human Mary Poppins, a more-interesting Jane Eyre, a... just awesome person and you need to meet her NOW SO GO READ IT.
5. Gidwitz, Adam. A Tale Dark and Grimm. MG folktale-retelling/dark fantasy/horror. The first sentence is, "Once upon a time, fairy tales were awesome." And I get stuck on that word, "awesome." What did I think of the book? It's awesome. Why? Because it's awesome. It's the best way to describe it, I swear! It's a retelling of several of the gorier lesser-known Grimm tales, woven together into a single narrative, and narrated in a way that, well, is like reading someone actually TELLING it. A teller who breaks in every so often to comment on what's going on, or warn the faint of heart that a scary part is coming up. It's like experiencing a gripping fun storytelling session in book form! And did I mention fun? Seriously fun. Maybe the reason my vocabulary has been reduced to "awesome" is that it brought out the kid in me-- awed, excited, and ready for something a little weird...
6.Bunce, Elizabeth C. Starcrossed. YA fantasy. This book is FUN. It's everything a fantasy-lover would want in a book-- maybe a little light on romance-- and nothing they wouldn't. The worldbuilding is fascinating. The action exciting. The politics complex but not off-putting. The heroine complex and cool. I hesitate to call her a female Eugenides because NOBODY is an ANYTHING Eugenides (except Eugenides), but it's on the right track. Eugenides-light, maybe. This is the first in a series, and it deserves to take off, among Graceling fans, among Queen's Thief fans, among anyone who likes their high fantasy more intriguey than hack-and-slash but still edge-of-your-seat-ing.
7.Erskine, Kathryn. Mockingbird. MG serious realistic fiction. YES, you read that right. I put one of those on this list, I did. I have a few personal buttons that serious realistic fiction can push for me occasionally. Autistic Spectrum Disorders. Sibling death. What about... girl with Asperger's deals with the death of a sibling? See that? Just that description is enough to make me sniffly. Actually reading this book made me bawl the whole way through. AND I ENJOYED EVERY MOMENT OF IT. I don't care for your typical GRIEF book, but if it looks at grief in a DIFFERENT WAY-- say, from the point of view of someone who has trouble processing EVERYDAY emotions as it is-- I'm more open. Obviously. Because I read this. And loved it. It's got humor too, which is important-- humor makes pathos JAB more.
8. Cushman, Karen. Alchemy and Meggy Swann. MG historical fiction. Karen Cushman does historical fiction RIGHT. Her dialogue is, as far as I know, historically accurate, but it crackles with life and personality. Her descriptions are rich and put you right into the setting, without feeling like a block of educational text you want to skip over. It struck me, reading this, that this would be a great crossover bait title for fantasy fans-- because really, it feels like reading fantasy. And Meggy's father is an alchemist. That's just a wizard whose spells don't always work quite right, right? But don't get me wrong-- I will sweep up a Cushman no matter what the topic. This is one of my favorites by her, not quite as up there as Catherine Called Birdy, but at least on par with The Ballad of Lucy Whipple.
9. Marchetta, Melina. Finnikin of the Rock. YA epic fantasy. I am some kind of freak among YA librarians for finding Jellicoe Road merely all right. So, in order to save face, I gamely admitted that MAYBE I might appreciate Marchetta better if I tried an all-out fantasy instead of a mostly-realistic-magic-realism-thing, because that could be entirely different, yes? IT WORKED. I definitely appreciated this one. Rich and complex without being boggy, dark without being hopeless. You know, there are lots of heavy real-world themes in this, about the plights of refugees and the fates of people under cruel governments. If she'd written realistic fiction about that, it would have been dank and depressing and who would want to read about it? But explore those same themes in fantasy, and suddenly you CARE.
10. Bow, Erin. Plain Kate. Young YA fantasy. Orphan girl sells her shadow, only to discover that her shadow is going to be used for NEFARIOUS PURPOSES, and not having a shadow is weirder than you expect it to be, anyway. This is rich and scary and sad and funny, and it has gypsies. They're not CALLED gypsies, but they're still interesting, and for all intents and purposes... um, anyway.
EDIT: Before I managed to finish and post this list, I also managed to finish reading another book which as it turns out also ought to be on this list. Yes, even with everything else going on this week, I finished it, which tells you something about how I didn't want to set it aside... but, I don't want to knock poor Plain Kate off the list after all this time, so let's put Duane, Diane. A Wizard of Mars at number, oh ,6.5? Young YA science fantasy. Oh how I love this series and all its L'Engleness. I wasn't actually expecting to like this one as much as I did-- it's so friggin' FAT (I really hate long books anymore), and she does tend toward weird side things that could have been cut out, and I'm not big on the more classic-science-fictiony turns the series takes, AND YET... I totally NEVER expect to like these books as much as I do. They always surprise me and make me love them all over again. SOOO good.
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Moving on to books that came out LAST year...
Top 10 2009 Books I Read in 2010!
1.Bray, Libba. Going Bovine. YA...I haven't the slightest idea what genre to put this in. Dark humor. Rather fantastic (as in, "containing fantasy elements"). Contemporary, but TWISTED. Don't let the fact that this is in the second list of books fool you: this IS my NUMBER ONE BOOK I read this year. Will probably make my as-of-yet-theoretical list of FAVORITE BOOKS EVER once I reread it (you always have to reread to be sure). It's bizarre and hilarious and amazingly put-together. It jumped out at me with "You Are Reading Something Special Now"-ness from the very first chapter. I still hesitate to recommend it to the unsuspecting, because it's definitely an unusual taste, but those who will appreciate it... will REALLY appreciate it. I discussed this more in-depth here.
2. Larbalestier, Justine. Liar. YA psychological thriller/horror. See above link, in which I talk about this one, too. This is a head-trip. AND THAT'S COOL. It will FREAK YOU OUT. And it's SUPPOSED to.
3. Cooper, Michelle. A Brief History of Montmaray. YA historical fiction. Actually alternate-historical. Not TOO alternate, just that there's an entire fictional country one-island-large in it. Anyway. Do you know how badly I want to send this book back to my 15-year-old self? You'll see, later in this post, that it inspired me to create a whole new award for the books I've read this year. Because this book IS teen-me. Cooper has somehow taken the disparaged bits of my wild mid-teen imagination and created a genuine story out of them. There's a rock off the coast of Europe, an independent sovereignty, which, after most of the population got wiped out in WWI, has about the same number of royals as subjects, and they're all pretty much like family, and the royals are just as poor as the subjects anyway, and it's told by one of the princesses, and WWII is about to start, and ... and... uh, I can't describe this in a straight line. You should JUST READ IT, ANYWAY. It totally has not gotten the attention it deserves.
4.Heiligman, Deborah. Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith. YA biography. Normally I forget to keep track of the nonfiction I read in the year (in part because browsing through books like "Potty Training Tips and Troubleshooting!" is hardly what I think of when people ask what I've read lately). But this double-biography is narrative enough that I had no problem putting it on my list of books-I've-read, and it DEFINITELY belongs here on the list of books-I've-loved. Really, it reads like a story, and it's a compelling story, and I loved reading about the Darwins and I loved THEM, and it's all just a sweet and beautiful love story, really. You're just learning actual history/biography/science at the same time.
5. Barnett, Mac. The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity: The Brixton Brothers, Book 1. MG mystery/satire. Have I mentioned that Mac Barnett is ridiculously cute in every possible way? He also writes a pretty hilarious spoof. I love my Nancy Drew, but that doesn't mean I can't laugh at it, too. See the link in the Going Bovine note for more on this one, too.
6. Dolamore, Jaclyn. Magic Under Glass. YA fantasy/gothic-romance. I'm not sure about that "gothic romance" part though, because when I think of gothic romances I think of stories a lot heavier and more dismal than this, which instead was a whole lot of FUN. Sure, it's got all the trappings of gothic romance: (alternate in-which-magic-is-known-to-exist) Victorian setting, young woman taken in and offered work by a handsome mysterious stranger, something amiss in his secluded manor, deadly secrets; also, there's a fairy prince trapped in a clockwork piano-playing man, a lot of (fun-)scary black magic happening, and the love triangle is decent for once. Good times.
7. Choldenko, Gennifer. Al Capone Shines My Shoes. Older-MG-or-young-YA-not-really-sure historical fiction. I loved the first book, Al Capone Does My Shirts, but I quite possibly liked this one even more. Still got the cool setting-- Alcatraz-- and the well-developed autistic character, but this one seemed a little heavier on the mystery, intrigue, and sense of danger. Possibly because Capone was more directly involved this time. Also, is it bad that I got a bit of a crush on Choldenko's Capone? Probably.
8. Stewart, Trenton Lee. The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma. MG mystery-adventure. This is blatantly the last book in the Mysterious Benedict Society trilogy. That blatancy-of-finality rather unnerved me, actually. Not that I think it ought to have gone on forever, but somehow I wasn't expecting that. But as usual, I loved these funny young geniuses and their puzzling things out and their lovely accepting-yet-imperfect relationships. The thing that stuck out for me most in this book, besides the finality, is discovering Constance's backstory-- which stuck with me rather powerfully.
9. Lin, Grace. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. MG fantasy/folktale-retelling. This is like A Tale Dark and Grimm, in that it's the weaving together of threads of actual folktales into a single storyline, told in a very You-Are-Hearing-It way. But it's very UNlike that book also, in that it is not nearly so violent. Also, the folktales are Chinese instead of German. And there are beautiful illustrations. But do not let the lack of violence fool you into believing that there is a lack of excitement, because it's still like getting swept off in the voice of a master storyteller.
10. Ostow, Micol. So Punk Rock: And Other Ways to Disappoint Your Mother. YA humorous realism. Story of some boys at a Jewish day school who form a band and become locally-famous for their punk rendition of "Hava Nagilah," and it made me laugh at least once every page, and I even got a bit of a crush on our hero, Ari (after all, as he's the one telling the story, he's the one who kept making me laugh). Also has pictures! The return of illustrated novels is interesting to me, although I'm not always a fan of pictures myself (because they mess up the pictures in my head).
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There's that. But see, in effort to squeeze in as many unique titles onto these lists as possible, I decided to shift a few titles that OUGHT to have been on those lists into this list instead:
Top Series and Companion Books I Discovered In Their Entireties This Year, Which Include Books From '09 or '10, But I Can't Very Well Not Mention the OTHER Books By Those Authors, So to Keep Them From Monopolizing the Lists With Their Seriality, Um, Now They're In This List Instead. In Alphabetical Order By Author, Because I Am Unable To Rank Series Because They Have Too Many Variables, So There. Anyway There Are Only Four.
Coombs, Kate. The Runaway Princess and The Runaway Dragon. MG humorous fairy-tale fantasy. I feel like I should put a disclaimer here, but really I don't needs should. See, I read these books in JANUARY, nearly a year ago-- I had seen Kate Coombs on
enchantedinkpot and thought she seemed cool-- and I loved them then, and THEN I dropped the author a message to say thank-you-because-I-loved-them, and anyway over the course of this year and a lot of blog-comment-exchanges and mutual-followings, I believe Kate is now an actual virtual friend of mine. (Also I just wanted to say "actual virtual"). But I'm not just putting her books on my list because she's my friend, is what I'm saying! The books came first! And Runaway Dragon should be considered about number 4.5 on the 2009 list! Maybe even tied for #4! These two books are that delightful brand of fantasy that twists all your typical fairytale tropes into something new, and I generally MEAN new, and not just twisting-the-same-ways-everyone-else-twisted-it (which is common). I loved the odd little details and surprises. It's a very Enchanted Forest Chronicles feel, but a little better actually because there are less talking cats. That may be a personal thing, though.EDIT: I got these books for Christmas, nyah nyay nyah!Moriarty, Jaclyn. The Ashbury High books. YA... uh, dang, these defy classification. The format is epistolary-plus, told entirely through notes, emails, memos, transcripts, and school assignments. They appear on the surface to be contemporary realism/school-story, but then something so completely outlandish will happen that "realism" seems a little off. They make you laugh, out loud and explosively and over and over again, but then they'll delve into the heartwrenchingly tragic (The Murder Of Bindy Mackenzie personally brought back many painful memories for me. Which isn't to say I didn't adore it, mind you), so you can't quite call them comedies either. Reading The Ghosts Of Ashbury High, which should fall about 8.5 on the 2010 list, I spent so much time GUFFAWING and making Jason look at me funny that several times I told myself, "Okay, it can't be THAT funny. Please try to contain your reactions to a grin or an amused snort," only to completely lose it again one sentence later. And then the next chapter would go off onto a serious history of the plight of Irish convicts in colonial Australia and for the next ten pages I wouldn't crack a smile. There really is nothing else like this out there. It's weird. In a good way.
Springer, Nancy. The Enola Holmes Mysteries. MG historical mystery. Chronicling the adventures of Sherlock Holmes' kid sister (you didn't know he had a kid sister? Shows what you know) as she gallivants around London finding missing persons and hiding from her brothers (who want to send her to boarding school) and generally being awesome, these are ADDICTIVE little books. As it only took me a day to swallow each (and this is on MY schedule-- someone without toddlers could do it in a couple hours), leaving me all the more ravenous for the next one, I finally had to take them out two at a time-- if you're doing it, just go for all six at once and call it a multi-volume book. They are great fun--and shockingly gritty for middle grade (I had at least one "I can't believe it WENT there!" moment per book)-- and I always feel like I'm learning something new and fascinating about Victorian London, like that they had department stores in the 1880s. And The Case of the Gypsy Goodbye was such a SATISFYING conclusion, leaving me actually rather sappy about it, that it totally should be number 4.5 on the 2010 list. I read it twice. I love short books.
Westerfeld, Scott. Leviathan and Behemoth. Young YA alt-history/steampunk. The aforementioned Kate Coombs recently posted a thought about who the audience for steampunk actually is. One question is, how much can kids get into alternative history with a limited knowledge of real history? And I admit I'm unable to figure that out from these books, because, people who know me personally, remember the Senior Synthesis Vienna Class/Trip? In which we spent a great deal of time studying the Hapsburgs and the roots of WWI? In college? Yeah, I have a bit of historical background knowledge, and I TOTALLY admit it's part of why I love this series so much. Because *squee* it's about the roots of WWI! In a universe in which Franz Ferdinand left behind a teenage son who's actually got a claim on the emperor-ity (throne? Is it called "throne" when it's an emperor?), and is also one of the heroes of the story! And did we mention the Central Powers are all Clankers, who build huge mechanical, um, everythings, while the Allies are Darwinists, who breed bizarre working creatures out of advances in genetic engineering you've never thought possible (or, for that matter, desirable? Some of those beasties are pretty creepy)? COME ON! You KNOW you're dying to read this, now! And for the record, Leviathan should be number, hmm, maybe even 1.5 on the 2009 list, and Behemoth like 7.5 on the 2010 list. Because I read a lot of good 2010 books.
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Well, now that we got the new books out of the way, let's jump right down to
Top Books That Came Out BEFORE I WAS EVEN BORN That I Finally Read In 2010!
Oddly, if you wondered, I didn't read anything particularly interesting from the in-between time this year, that isn't already accounted for in the Series-and-Companion-Books list. So we can ignore that entirely.
1. Enright, Elizabeth. The Saturdays. MG humorous realism. So, when this showed up at #51 on Fuse #8's Top 100 Children's Novels Poll this spring, I said, "Look, a book I've actually never heard of!" At which point
punterschlagen yelled, "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! I TOTALLY TOLD YOU TO READ THIS BOOK OVER A DECADE AGO!" This is true. I clearly remember the conversation we had about Elizabeth Enright, in which I said OMGIcan'tbelievesomeoneelsehasactuallyreadGoneAwayLake, and she said IfyoulikedthatonethenyouHAVEtoreadherbooksabouttheMelendys, and... somehow the fact that the first Melendy book had the title The Saturdays never made it into my brain. SO I fixed that this year. And she's right, it's good stuff. Light on actual plot arc, but this is more than made up for by the great characters and their oh-so-witty dialogue. SO FUN.2. Smith, Dodie. I Capture the Castle. YA-ish (technically this was before YA was invented, but for all intents and purposes...) realism I guess? Melodramatic realism? Anyway, grabbed this one on audiobook for a trip to an out-of-state wedding-- figured I'd catch up on some books-I-should-have-read-before reading, and as this one had been mentioned both in reviews of the aforementionedly-awesome Brief History of Montmaray AND once or twice by the also-aforementionedly-awesome
punterschlagen, I gave it a go, and fell in love in the first sentence. VOICE. They use this book to teach writing students about voice, don't they? Well, they SHOULD. Our narrator has the sort of voice that is on the one hand so unique and clever and marvelous, and on the other hand so believably innocent/naive and ACTUAL TEENAGE GIRL-y, that-- well I don't know what "that." It's just very well done, that's all.3. Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Sign of Four. Victorian pulp mystery from before books had age levels (I say in denial that it probably ought to be considered Adult. Even though they do often catalog these in J. But seriously, all your characters are adults. And your hero shoots cocaine. It's adult). I got bombarded with Sherlock Holmes interpretations in a relatively short period of time this year (see #3 last section, example), which forced me to my own bookshelves to do some rereading of the originals, when here I discover there was this WHOLE OTHER BOOK which I had never gotten to stuck in the back of my volume of A Study in Scarlett, maybe because I got annoyed with the second half of Study in Scarlett and put it away too soon (he should NEVER LET ANYBODY WHO ISN'T WATSON NARRATE. Thank you.) And what a nice surprise, because I totally loved this one, although I loved it best for a really stupid reason that Holmes himself would DISDAIN me for. This is the one where Watson meets his wife, which means he spends about half the book getting all sappy about it, and I couldn't help thinking he was doing it on purpose just to annoy Holmes, like, "Looky here, I get to be the ROMANTIC HERO of this book! Not the chronically underappreciated sidekick! THE ROMANTIC HERO! WATCH ME PLAY THIS UP! I GET THE GIRL!" (Holmes: "You're being emotional again. Please stop." Watson: "YOU ARE SUCH A FREAKING ROBOT.") As a hopeless Dr. Watson fangirl, I approve of this move.
4. Raskin, Ellen. The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel). MG mystery. So, you've all read The Westing Game, right? If not, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU GO FIX THAT. I had never read anything else by Raskin, and decided that needed to be fixed, too. Now, the mystery-weaving is not nearly as brilliant as in her more-famous book (but how many mysteries ARE?), but this one's still a lot of puzzling and ridiculous fun. I'll be honest, though, I might not have found it very memorable until I got to... the epilogue. Really the last section, which FUNCTIONS as an epilogue even though it isn't called that. The epilogue of this book has to be the Greatest Epilogue In the History of Literature. It is the most hilariously understated listing of What-Happened-to-Everybody anyone has ever written. Of course you have to read the whole book to APPRECIATE the brilliance that is the epilogue, but that's not hard. I know it's strange when the only part of a book you really feel like talking about is the epilogue, but it's THAT AWESOME.
5. Sayers, Dorothy L. The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries. Um, mysteries, duh. And yes, ACTUALLY in the Adult section. See, I've told you many times how hard it is to convince me to go into the Adult Fiction section, but if you come up with just the right hook, I'm there. And for these books,
sarahtales wins, for describing them as "Bertie Wooster Solves Mysteries." Okay she got me. SEE? Just got to find the hook. Anyway, have you noticed a lot of mysteries on the list this year? I'm not sure if it's really a lot, proportionately to other years, or not, but I noticed, suddenly remembering how mysteries were actually my first literary love. Sometimes I actually think I settled for writing fantasy because I'm not good enough at plotting to write mysteries.*6. I was going to just make it a top five for this list, but I can't avoid giving a shout-out to: Aiken, Joan. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. MG-young-YA melodrama. Because I've been waiting TWENTY YEARS to read this. I'm afraid it isn't nearly as high on this list as it WOULD have been had I actually read it twenty years ago, because I was in the MOOD for orphan melodramas back then, and am not so much now. BUT SERIOUSLY.
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And now for something completely different:
TOP PICTURE BOOKS AND EASY READERS I discovered in 2010.
It is perhaps wrong of me to lump these two into one list. I in fact did a WHOLE FAMILY PROGRAM a few weeks ago in which I EXPLAINED why Picture Books and Easy Readers are not the same thing for part of it. A Picture Book is a book in which words and pictures (and sometimes just pictures) work together to tell a complete story. They may be for any age level, and the words may be on any reading level. An Easy Reader is a book written with a limited vocabulary and simple structure, specifically for beginning readers. It may also have a lot of pictures, but they are not necessarily as integral as they are in a picture book. THERE. Stepping down off the soap box to continue, in author order because I just don't FEEL like ranking, although I am including exactly ten, if you count the series as one book:
Barton, Chris. Shark vs. Train. Picture Book, preschool/younger elementary and up. DUDE. It's just my favorite picture book this year. I know I've mentioned it already.
Birdsall, Jeanne. Flora's Very Windy Day. Picture Book, eh, preschool/young elementary too. Honestly, I did not include this just to make
vovat gawk and say "What, she's done a PICTURE BOOK TOO?" Anyway, much of the credit here belongs to illustrator Matt Phelan, too, for these gorgeously buoyant pictures that make you feel like YOU'RE about to get swept up in a gust of something, too. It's a really lovely little book all over.DiCamillo, Kate and Alison McGhee. Bink and Gollie. Uh, sort of on the upper-end of Easy Reader, longer side of Picture Book. It's like Frog and Toad, but with female humans instead of male amphibians! Humorous friendship expressed in simple perfection.
Lehman, Barbara. The Red Book and Rainstorm mostly, but pretty much everything I've seen by her. Picture Books, elementary. She is my visual-artist soul mate. Linking you back to the post where I first gushed about these.
Lobel, Arnold. Frog and Toad Together. Easy Reader. Okay, so I actually "discovered" this something like 28 years ago. But I didn't fully appreciate it until I read it again this year. This storytelling is BRILLIANT! So deceptively simple. "Cookies" is just a perfect little story no matter what your age.
Macaulay, David. Black and White. Picture book, I'd say upper elementary. Very complex. Linking you back to that picture book post again.
Stein, David Ezra. Interrupting Chicken. Picture book, preschool, probably early elementary too. I really didn't mean to keep laughing so hard. It's kind of predictable after awhile, shouldn't that mean it stops being as funny? Nope. It doesn't stop being funny.
Tan, Shaun. Tales From Outer Suburbia. Very long picture book bordering on "graphic novel" although it's not really that, either; upper-elementary to adult. This book is, should I have actually tried to rank ALL the books I read this year without separating them into lists (don't make me though), definitely up in my top 5. Such a psychedelic wonderful dream! Linking to where I first tell you about THIS one, which includes a link to a sample of the book. Not the same picture book link as the other picture book links in this list, by the way.
Van Allsburg, Chris. The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Picture book, upper elementary and up. I also explained THIS one before, in that post where I gushed about picture books, but it definitely bears repeating. This is just A WORK OF ART. THIS is how pictures tell stories, SERIOUSLY.
Willems, Mo. The Elephant and Piggie books. Easy readers. Seriously, people. Mo Willems keeps winning Geisel awards-- what we should all just accept is that this is because he IS the new Dr. Seuss. HE IS A FRIGGIN' GENIUS. How you can do SO much with such a limited vocabulary and some deceptively simple illustrations? It must be seen to be believed. My coworker who does the young child storytimes also just discovered these a few months ago, and we spent some time just gushing back and forth over them.
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Well, that's all for ranking lists. But Finally, to sum everything up, I am now proud to introduce:
The Why I Need a Time Machine Award, for the books that screamed out YOU WOULD HAVE SO LOVED THIS BOOK WHEN YOU WERE IN THE TARGET AGE RANGE FOR IT! at me as I read, which happened a LOT this year. Maybe it's a zeitgeist thing, as a lot of debut authors are from my generation and all, although that discounts the first author on the list, so the theory is fuzzy. I'm awarding it for every other year-- because that's how they seemed to fall-- from 4th grade (because I can't remember what my particular taste in books WAS before that-- I may not have HAD taste in books then) to 12th grade (by which point I'd already taken to reading things I was way out of the target age range for regularly, so it no longer becomes obvious), and giving my reasons for placing it such.
4th grade: Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes Mysteries, because, hello, smart and spunky young girl solves genuinely dangerous mysteries in a rich historical setting? Yes, please.
6th grade: Jacqueline West's The Shadows: The Books of Elsewhere, which I know didn't make the 2010 top ten up there, but only because I read so many dang good books this year. In 6th grade I had just finished writing a book which involved at one point entering a painting into another world. GUESS WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT. And it involves magical glasses! And it's SCARY! And it has talking cats that actually DIDN'T ANNOY ME!
8th grade: technically, Joan Aiken's The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I know, it's cheating, because it totally was out when I was in 8th grade, but I LOOKED FOR IT EVERYWHERE (already being an Aiken fan, and having read about it on the back of another book) , and could not find it; and when I finally DID read it now, all I could think was DAMN. And I don't even say "damn" usually. 8th grade WAS my orphan melodrama phase! I don't appreciate them nearly so much now! But if forced to pick something that wasn't actually already out back then, I'll take Erin Bow's Plain Kate because it's got gypsies and scary occult happenings and, yes, orphans, and did I mention gypsies...
10th grade: Michelle Cooper's A Brief History of Montmaray: Actually, MOST of the books here made me say "I would have SO loved this as a kid!" But THIS book, on the other hand, made me say "OMG MICHELLE COOPER HIJACKED MY TEENAGED BRAIN!" A castle! Nazis! Ghosts! Crazy people! British nobility! NON-British nobility! NOT true love! Diary format! The only thing she left out was sym-- wait, she DID include sympathetic socialists. THERE WERE EVEN SYMPATHETIC SOCIALISTS! Who IS this Michelle Cooper person, and HOW IS SHE DOING THIS?!
12th grade: Unfortunately, Jane Austen did not come out with any new books this year. So, barring that, I will have to go with Jaclyn Dolamore's Magic Under Glass, because I'd actually developed an appreciation for romances, particularly historical romances that are not hot-and-steamy (note reference to Jane Austen), plus this is all gothicky and has dark magic and intrigue and stuff too, because seriously why would you read a romance that didn't have SOMETHING extra and cool in it.** I would have been secretly swoony over the romance, all the while playing up the fantasy bit to anyone who would have happened to ask about what I was reading.
Absolutely any time because I can't pinpoint exactly when, but YEAH: Adam Gidwitz's A Tale Dark and Grimm. I can't even explain exactly what about it, it just IS. Actually, the VERY BEST time to send this back to young-me would be freshman year college, when we were studying Bettelheim. SERIOUSLY.
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Sooo... thoughts? Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments!*** See something you want to read now? Tell me that too! I would so love to discuss these books with y'all, so don't be shy-- tell me about it! (take notes if you have to!)
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*My subconscious just the other night was behaving oddly on this subject. Yesterday I woke up and started jotting a dream in my dream journal (which is not so much a genuine dream journal as a selection of dreams that strike me as rather story-like, so that I might one day use them as jumping-off points for actual stories, or at least use it as proof to myself that I actually am creative when I'm not thinking too hard about it), only to realize that I ACTUALLY felt like developing this one into more of a proper story form RIGHT THERE, so I wrote two pages worth of scenes, and you know what genre those two pages is threatening to be? Adult mystery. There's no avoiding its adultness-- although there is a class of high school English students involved, the three actual full-blown characters to come out of it are all adults. Technically. Granted, it's the sort of adult fiction I DO occasionally read, along the lines of Douglas Adams (actually I'm pretty sure I was channeling Dirk Gently in this thing. DIRK GENTLY CROSSED WITH BATMAN. How fun is that) or Jasper Fford. So I haven't completely lost it.
**Note: the "extra and cool" in Austen is the humor. Totally, I only read her for the humor. I swear.
***Yes, I already know you disagree with me about Gen/Irene being creepy. Let's move on...
