105 Ways to Give a Book

Top Picks for 2006 (So Far): Young Adult

Oh, what fun! I’ve received many comments on the favorite books of the kidlitosphere. Jen Robinson was all over this challenge, posting her list before even I got to it. And she linked to her own reviews of the books so you can find out more about them. Great idea, Jen, and I’ll follow suit.

I’m going to break my list down into two, maybe three posts, because doing all these links wears me out. Plus I can’t decide on my favorite picture books. There are so many great ones!

I’ve divided my Young Adult books into High School and Middle School, thus accomplishing two things. One, I can differentiate for those schools/readers/libraries that need to know if there is any s*e*x in the books. Two, I can suggest twice as many books.

High SchoolMiddle SchoolIn doing this list I realized that I never blogged about some of my favorite books of the year. I guess I just forgot. I also felt that I needed to include a second book with a male protagonist in my high school list, so I selected Nailed instead of, say, Stay With Me or Bass Ackwards and Belly Up, both of which I liked better. I need to read more boy books. I also freshly appreciated the wide range that is Young Adult. The last three Middle School Suggestions would be great for High School too. Many of the High School books are fine for Middle School — depending on the reader. And the age recommendations for the books in the reviews are all over the place. So, know your community/readers/PTA.

I’ll be back with more top picks later, and I’ll be popping by the neighborhood book blogs to see what others have suggested.
Category: 5 comments

5 comments:

Gail Gauthier said...

Happy Kid! was published May 18, 2006. Amazon has it down as a December, 2005 book. I have no idea why.

MotherReader said...

Great! Now I'm not even cheating by putting it on my list.

Adam said...

I do not see It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. Or Dairy Queen by Catherine Murdock.

Is King Dork really that good?

Anonymous said...

I'm happy to participate. Including the review links is a little more work, but I think it will make the list more useful going forward. Our lists are somewhat different, but (as was the case with Liz's list) the books that are on your list that aren't on mine are ones that I haven't read (yet). And it's amazing how happy it makes me to see a book that I loved on someone else's list, too (e.g. Happy Kid! and Yellow Star). It's like these books are kids that I'm fond of. Thanks for starting this off!

Anonymous said...

My list is finally up. Whew.