Lynn: The youngest members of our focus group members (pictured below) are now six and three. Like the other three boys in the group, they have strong opinions! Here are their 2016 favorites of the many we’ve read together this year. I added three more titles at the end that are personal favorites of mine. 1 […]
Cindy: I managed to keep my list to ten titles this year, a miracle, really. It helps that I can rest easy knowing that other personal favorites are appearing on Lynn’s lists. It’s always hard to pick just a small number as so many books become favorites for different reasons. The Twelve Days of Dash […]
Another year distinguished by a glut of good books has flown by. One of my hardest jobs in the face of such abundance is winnowing the lot to a manageable few of the best; in this case, that means a baker’s dozen selected from an initial list of 27. Ah, the labors of Hercules! Anyway, the […]
Coverage of the top books of last year, as measured by the number of times a book was mentioned as a best book of the year or nominated for an award, continues today as I turn toward short stories. I’ll highlight the top five collections, then list some of the other books that came close. In […]
Mystery Month is in full swing here at Booklist, with all of the interviews, webinars, and blog posts about mystery fiction you could possibly want. And now, all of the book recommendations you need. Every year in the May 1 issue, our Mystery Showcase, Booklist compiles the 10 best adult crime novels reviewed over the previous 12 […]
Beginning last November, you saw dozens of lists claiming to identify the best books of 2014. But when you think about it, that’s a big claim. Had the writer of the article read a sizable fraction of the books published in that year? Not likely. And even if the list is compiled by multiple reviewers, […]
Traditions stick around because they work. So here’s my annual plug for Largehearted Boy’s monstrously comprehensive list of this year’s “best of” lists. Want to know what anyone who has ever had an opinion about anything thought about what was published last year? Check out Largehearted Boy’s Online “Best of 2014″ Lists. A great source of […]
Cindy and Lynn: Top Ten lists are so limiting. We never seem to manage to hold to ten anyway. We are trying to put some limits on ourselves, though, so we are combining our fiction, nonfiction and picture book best lists into a much more manageable “2013 Favorites” list for each of us. Some of […]
The Seattle Reads 2012 selection was recently announced–Amy Waldman’s debut novel, The Submission. The Submission has garnered much praise in the past year and was named as Esquire’s Book of the Year. Here is what Esquire had to say: I have no idea how Amy Waldman came to write her first novel, The Submission (Farrar, […]
It’s my favorite time of year! Year-end best of lists! Books, movies, television, music, websites, fashion faux pas and anything else folks care to list. While they’re probably not the first to post their best list, the Kansas City Star posted their Best Books of 2011 list over the weekend. What I liked about this […]
Encouraging Middle-Schoolers to Choose Books
There’s been a lot of discussion among the librarians I know about what to do with middle-schoolers: they just don’t seem to read as much as they used to. I know that here in Chicago, we have a unique perspective on this situation, since our schools run K–8. In my former school system in Maryland […]
Getting Started with the Global Read Aloud
The 2017 Global Read Aloud kicked off yesterday, and I’m here to help. Author and educator Pernille Ripp founded the program as a way to connect students and teachers from different locales around the topics of books. (Think One Book One School or One Book One City, but on a global scale.) Each year, Ripp […]
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: Practice Recognizing Fake News
Cindy: There have been a number of YA fiction books with the title “Two Truths and a Lie,” but we’ve found a creative, informational book for middle-grade students that reinforces evaluating information for truth. Fake news, anyone? Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive (2017) by Ammi-Joan Paquette and Laurie Ann Thompson is the first […]
Encouraging Middle-Schoolers to Choose Books
There’s been a lot of discussion among the librarians I know about what to do with middle-schoolers: they just don’t seem to read as much as they used to. I know that here in Chicago, we have a unique perspective on this situation, since our schools run K–8. In my former school system in Maryland […]
Getting Started with the Global Read Aloud
The 2017 Global Read Aloud kicked off yesterday, and I’m here to help. Author and educator Pernille Ripp founded the program as a way to connect students and teachers from different locales around the topics of books. (Think One Book One School or One Book One City, but on a global scale.) Each year, Ripp […]
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: Practice Recognizing Fake News
Cindy: There have been a number of YA fiction books with the title “Two Truths and a Lie,” but we’ve found a creative, informational book for middle-grade students that reinforces evaluating information for truth. Fake news, anyone? Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive (2017) by Ammi-Joan Paquette and Laurie Ann Thompson is the first […]
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