"Outside a dog a book is man's best friend, inside a dog it is too dark to read!" -Groucho Marx========="The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid." -Jane Austen========="I don’t believe in the kind of magic in my books. But I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book."-JK Rowling========"I spend a lot of time reading." -Bill Gates=========“Ahhh. Bed, book, kitten, sandwich. All one needed in life, really.” -Jacqueline Kelly=========

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Favorite YA books list

I bumped into this list of 100 favorite YA books today.
It was created by NPR two years ago after over 75,000 people voted for their favorites.

Check out the whole list here:

Here are the top 50---
  1. Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
  2. Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
  3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  4. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
  5. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
  6. The Catcher and the Rye by JD Salinger
  7. The Lord of the Rings series by JRR Tolkien
  8. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  9. Looking for Alaska by John Green
  10. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  11. The Giver series by Lois Lowry
  12. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams
  13. The Outsiders by SE Hinton
  14. Anne of Green Gables series by LM Montgomery
  15. His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman
  16. The Perks of Being Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
  17. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
  18. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  19. Divergent series by Veronica Roth
  20. Paper Towns by John Green
  21. The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare
  22. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
  23. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
  24. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
  25. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
  26. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
  27. Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
  28. Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld
  29. The Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare
  30. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
  31. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie
  32. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
  33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
  34. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
  35. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
  36. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
  37. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
  38. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
  39. Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead
  40. Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix
  41. Dune by Frank Herbert
  42. Discworld/Tiffany Aching series by Terry Pratchett
  43. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
  44. The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper
  45. Graceling series by Kristin Cashore
  46. Forever by Judy Blume
  47. Earthsea series by Ursula LeGuin
  48. The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini
  49. The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot
  50. Song of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce
See the whole list here at NPR of the 100 most popular books and brief descriptions of each.

What do you think? Do you agree with 75,000 people that voted for this list? Do you think all the books will last the test of time? If they created the list today, what books would you add?

(I'm going to answer my own questions on the comment section. So think through your answers first before you read my comments.)

7 comments:

  1. I couldn't believe that this list was two years old. There are very few books from the past two years that I think would make the list that aren't already on it. I would add books by Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys series and would move up the Shiver series higher on the list. I would also add some Neil Gaiman, AS King, and Benjamin Alire Saenz books onto the list. 0f the top 20 books I think that most of them (17-18) will pass the test of time (since most of them already have.) I doubt that that all of John Green's book will stay in the top 50, but who knows? He is by far the most popular author in my library now.

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  2. Hard to say which ones will still be on the list in 50 years, but I'm guessing the HP books will, along with some of the earlier classics. I've read a fair number of these but would like to read more!

    Anne, I'm thinking of tagging you in the "Book Blogger's Test" - not a test but a get-to-know-you list of questions with no time limit and no obligation to particpate. Are you at all interested? If you're not, I'm happy to tag someone else - but I had fun answering the questions and thought you might, too. Please let me know at jkpekar AT crosslink DOT net. Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. Lark, I'd be happy to take the Book Blogger's Test. Send me the link.

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  3. I have read 26/50 of the books on this list. I think that many will stand the test of time, as some of them already have (LOTR). The books that I think are missing are the Chronicles of Narnia (an oldy but a goody). And if the list was made now, I think that Rainbow Rowel would make the list with Eleanor and Park and also with Fangirl, both made such a splash this past year.

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    1. Good call, Carly. I went back and looked at the comments on the NPR story and three books were mentioned over and over again that should have been on the list: Ender's Game; Percy Jackson series; and The Chronicles of Narnia series. Glad you mentioned it. I also agree with you. If the list were made today I think that Rainbow Rowell's book would deserve a spot. BTW- I think I've read 34 of the 50 books I listed (I didn't count up the list of books read off the list of 100), so I am ahead of you on books but you are ahead of me on time since I am so much older than you.

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  4. Young adults read Dune? Flowers for Algernon? The Call of the Wild? I'm not saying they aren't wonderful books(I've read them all) but Dune is very dense and Flowers for Algernon makes me cry every time I even think about it. Lord of the Flies,ugh. In my day(without YA lit), we read the Anne of Green Gables series and Little Women, as well as Jane Austen. Sad to see so few classics on the list. I think it's difficult to predict which books will survive the test of time. Tastes change, so I'm not sure that the dystopian ones will remain as popular as they are today.

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    1. I know what you mean about Flowers for Algernon and Call of the Wild. Some kids, not many, do read Dune, however. The NPR site didn't say, so I don't know, who answered the poll so many of the respondents were likely adults thinking back on their favorite books as teens.

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