Monday, December 15, 2008

Best of 2008

It's a fun time of year--lots of "best of the best" year-end round up lists are out.

Check out a few of these lists...are any of the titles familiar to you? If not, now's a great time to read some reviews! You'll be ready with some fresh books the next time someone needs a recommendation!

Horn Book Fanfare
New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books
School Library Journal
Publishers Weekly (scroll down for youth titles)
Amazon: Picture Books, Middle Readers, and Teen.

Books that are on at least three of those lists?

Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Kingdom on the Waves
Graceling
Hunger Games
Little Brother
Nation
Our White House
Pale Male
Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes
Tender Morsels
We Are the Ship

Need more?
Check out the Best Of page at Chicken Spaghetti.

5 comments:

Alyson said...

How do the lists on our websites compare to the illustrious list Melissa mentioned? Actually pretty close because we read those lists too!

MelissaZD said...

Thanks Alyson! And thanks to Fuse #8 for the link to this article, which talks about how to choose books for kids you (or your patron) don't know that well.

Allison said...

Hmm...I am interested as to why "Twilight" did not make the best of the best? It is also interesting that two books that are supposed to be similar "Graceling" and "Hunger Games" are on both lists...actually I think Stephenie Meyer was reading "Hunger Games".
I am going to try out "Graceling"!:)

Alyson said...

Twilight was published in 2005, so is not on any lists even if it was THE book of 2008. There often seems to be a (huge) gap between the best reviewed and the most popular books which is why I put up two lists on the teen site, Best Books
and Popular. I put Breaking Dawn on the popular list (for obvious reasons) but put The Host on the Best Books list because of the reviews and my own personal preference.

Allison said...

Ah that is right Alyson I keep forgetting that Twilight was published in 2005! Thanks for the info!