My Head Is Full of Books: Geekily and greedily reading all the end-of-the-year-best-books-lists!

"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=========

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Geekily and greedily reading all the end-of-the-year-best-books-lists!

I kid you not. I spent hours today looking through all the the end of the year BEST of the BEST books list that have came out this past week and month. My focus is on Young Adult Literature.

Take a look at the lists for yourself and indulge your inner book geekiness, too.

School Library Journal divides up their list into four categories: Picture Books, Middle Grade, Young Adult, and Nonfiction. They have eighteen books on their young adult list with many of my favorites of the year making an appearance: I'll Give You the Sun; Gabi: a Girl in Pieces; Glory O'Brien's History of the Future. It also lists several books I've not even heard of. Oh-oh more books to add to my next order.

New York Times, Notable Children's books: It also lists books in three categories: Picture Books, Middle Grades, and Young Adults. There are only six YA books listed, and I've read them all.

Kirkus Reviews, Best Teen Books. By far the most books of any of the lists. This one contains over 50 YA titles. Many of the books I have enjoyed and I liked seeing them on a "best of the year" list.

Horn Book, Fanfare! Their list doesn't isolate out the YA titles from the middle grade fiction but there are a few YA titles on the lists.

National Public Radio (NPR), Best Books of 2014. They have books in 27 categories with eleven books in the YA category. However YA books are in other lists, too. Have fun looking around.

Morris Award finalists: These are the best five books by debut authors. My favorite is The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender. I deeply love this book.

Publishers Weekly: Best Books of 2014. Books in thirteen categories, young adult lit among them. This list has most of my YA favorites of the year on it.

YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction finalists: Five titles have made their short list. The winner will be announced on Feb. 2nd.

How do these lists affect the Printz selection? The best of the best of the best decision? I have no idea. But I know I was gratified to discover that my rather long 2015 Mock Printz list had all but two of the books listed most frequently on these lists. I think we did OK on our selection.