Tuesday, January 19, 2010

I've Narrowed It Down to Twenty-Seven

A few months ago I posted about the wonderful list of picture books that blogger Elizabeth Bird, over at School Library Journal (SLJ), had written about. She'd conducted a poll and ended up ranking and writing about the top 100 favorite picture books of those who responded to the poll. A great list.

I almost squealed in delight when I saw she's conducting a new poll, this time on favorite fiction books for mid-grade readers. I've been re-discovering how much I love mid-grade fiction in recent years (it seems to be the literary landscape where I feel most at home) and I'm looking forward to actually participating in the poll this time, since I found the post in time. She wants folks to list their top ten and rank them.

Heh. My squealing glee quickly turned to some brow-wrinkling as I began to jot titles. It's not, of course, that I can't think of ten...and plenty more. It's trying to decide what constitutes "my favorite and my best" (to quote Lauren Child's Lola). Even trying to narrow it down to only those books that I think really, truly deserve to make a top ten, I currently find myself with a list of 27!

Well, I've still got a few more days to hammer out the top ten (poll closes at month's end). I plan to post my list here once it's in shape. And I'd love to hear about some of your favorite mid-grade reads!

And speaking of book lists, my annual "favorite books of the year" list is indeed coming. I seem to post it later every January. It's always interesting to look back over the last reading year and see what really jumps out at me as memorable and noteworthy. I do plan to get the post up before the end of the month!

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