We have reached the end of this journey through my most popular posts of the past! Thank you for coming along with me, and do let me know in the comments if any of my posts are personal favorites of yours.
In the number 3 spot, we have a list that I put out just last April. It’s gotten 210 views in that time, and I’m so happy both to be able to spotlight these excellent and much-needed books, and that it seems to be filling a need for kids who, like my own, are hungering to see themselves reflected in books.
The #2 post is even newer, published in September 2023. It’s gotten 191 hits since then, which if it keeps up, will put it at 382 hits by its first birthday. What magic-loving child hasn’t dreamed of going to magic school themselves? This list has a range of options – and there are even more in my first list on the topic, Magical Middle School.
Drumroll, please – the one you’ve all been waiting for – the number one post – my list of winter-themed fantasy books. This one has gotten 1,194 view since it was posted in December of 2020, for an average of 398 views a year. I’m so happy to find other people who love winter as much as I do, even if I am secretly a bit puzzled at its year-round popularity.
Dear readers, as fun as this trip down memory lane, looking at my top 12 most popular posts of the past 20 years of book blogging has been, it’s taking way too long for me to get these all up. I’d really like to get back to sharing my current reading with you as well! So, I’m going to wrap this up in just two more posts. I hope you enjoy, and thank you all for reading with me!
This 2021 post was inspired both by a similar post at Reading Middle Grade and my reality as a parent of kids with ADHD and dyslexia who nonetheless love fantasy, and as a librarian seeing kids come in with reading projects that they’ve left until the last minute. It’s gotten 439 views, for an average 176 a year.
I put together lists of Asian-American graphic novels for several years, most recently in 2021. (It’s probably time for an update!) Probably due to search engine logic, this one from 2017 gets more views than the most recent two, despite my updating the older versions to include links to the newer ones. I used to find this frustrating and am now more amused. This one has gotten 1,288 views for 184 views a year.
My number 4 post here, books for fans of role-playing games, includes a mix of fantasy and realistic books, some that explicitly involve RPGs, and some whose ensemble casts felt to me like they could easily be adapted into games. All of these are books that I’ve personally very much enjoyed. This list was published in September 2020, and has gotten 695 views since then, for 199 views a year.
In celebration of my 20th blogiversary, I’m reblogging the posts that have gotten the most views in the time they’ve been published. As I mentioned in my last post, all of the top 8 slots are held by my booklists. This one focuses on epic YA fantasy, all available through our e-reading platforms for easy access during Covid lockdowns. They should work just as well now! It’s actually tied with the last one I posted, with 606 lifetime hits, or 152 a year.
In celebration of my 20th blogiversary, I’m reblogging the posts that have gotten the most views in the time they’ve been published. From here to the top spot, the rest of this list of top posts are all book lists (which perhaps means I should devote more of my time to lists and less to individual book reviews.) I put together a lot of lists of books available without in-person library access when I was working from home in 2020, and these as well as a couple of older ones continue to get regular hits. 10 Great Fantasy Audiobook Series for Kids on hoopla came close to making the list with 357 lifetime hits, but this one for teens beat it out with 606 lifetime hits, or 152 a year.
In celebration of my 20th blogiversary, I’m reblogging the posts that have gotten the most views in the time they’ve been published. Here we have #9, a post that has gotten regular hits every year since I published it in 2014 – 1,459 as of this writing, for an average of 146 a year. My personal love for these books has not diminished over time, either. I listened to them separately with both of my kids, and the ELL book club I facilitate at my library really enjoyed it as well.
In celebration of my 20th blogiversary, I’m reblogging the posts that have gotten the most views in the time they’ve been published. Here’s #10, the book of the poem The Microscope by award-winning poet Maxine Kumin. This is the only post still getting hits from from the top 10 list I created for my tenth blogiversary. It has 1659 lifetime views as of this writing, for an average of 138 views a year. I first read this poem in Cricket magazine, but I’m guessing that most people remember it because it was a Reading Rainbow book.
In celebration of my 20th blogiversary, I’m reblogging the posts that have gotten the most views in the time they’ve been published. Here is #11, Maizy Chen’s Last Chance. With just 202 lifetime hits, this is not at the top of the list for overall hits. However, since I only wrote the post a year and a half ago, it’s quite a respectable showing! I really enjoyed this book, and I’m so glad to see that people are continuing to look for it.
Hello, dear readers! As requested, in honor of my 20th blogging anniversary, I’m reblogging my top posts. Rather than going with the posts with the overall highest hits, I’m going with the ones with the highest hits by age to even out the recent popular ones. This post, first published on June 30, 2020, has gotten 415 views in the about 4 years it’s been in the world, for about 104 views per year.
This year, especially with my most graphic novel-loving kid still home on break when the finalists were announced, I decided to check all of the middle grade graphic novel finalists out at once. While they’re all excellent books, since you can read the full blurbs on the Cybils site and I have an enormous backlog of books I want to share with you, I thought I’d try doing super-short reviews here. Let me know what you think!
First Time for Everything by Dan Santat. First Second, 2023. ISBN 978-1626724150. Read from a library copy. The summer before high school, Dan joined a class trip to Europe filled with firsts that changed his life. It doesn’t shy away from even the parts that seem shocking now. Dan Santat previously won the Caldecott Medal and this book won the National Book Award for Young People – it shows. This spoke especially to me, as it was not so many years later that I first went to Europe myself – but the spirit of allowing oneself to explore the inner world at the same time as the outer is one that still resonates today.
Frizzyby Claribel Ortega and Rose Bousamra. First Second, 2022. ISBN978125025622. Read from a library copy. Marlene has been forced to take boring and humiliating weekly trips to the salon to get her hair straightened ever since her mother decided she was old enough to be a young lady. With encouragement from her best friend Camilla and help from her beloved Tia Ruby, Marlene learns how to embrace and care for her curls. Even though this focuses closely on the hair, exploring how Marlene is treated by family members and at school shines a light on the deep beliefs about hair both in Latinx and broader American cultures. My kid read this one twice.
Lo and Beholdby Wendy Mass. Illustrated by Gabi Mendez. Random House Graphics, 2023. ISBN 9780593179635. Read from a library copy. Addie’s stubbornly stayed on her own, abandoned by her friends since her mother’s serious health issues. She’s uninterested when her father moves them to a college campus for the summer, where’s he’s working on virtual reality. At first she rebuffs the friendly advances from the only other kid her age on campus, Mateo – but gradually allows him in and comes up with ideas to extend the use of AI. This deals gently with the damage an addiction in the family can cause, while staying rooted in the perils of developing friendship and the excitement of the new technologies. The art bursts from straightfoward panels into exuberance as the lines of reality are blurred with the VR. This was my kid’s second favorite of the batch, read at least three times.
Things in the Basementby Ben Hatke. First Second, 2023. ISBN 9781250836618. Read from a library copy. Ben Hatke’s beautiful art style and creative imagination are on full display in this minimal-text graphic novel. A young boy, coded as Afro-Latino, moves into a big Victorian house with his mother and twin baby siblings. When a baby’s sock goes missing, he follows the critter who’s stolen it into the basement – finding layer upon layer of hidden rooms filled with one adventure after another. The shadowy watercolor art in muted tones really enhances this secret world. Beings kind and malevolent, and adventures both exciting and terrifying, fill the world of the basement. This is one I wanted everyone else in the family to read.
Mexikidby Pedro Martín. Dial Books, 2023. ISBN 9780593462287. Read from a library copy. This is a rich addition to the catalog of graphic memoirs for kids. Here, the author shares his story of growing up in a large Mexican-American family in the 70s and the summer they drove from California down to Mexico to bring his grandfather home. The drawings and colors bring the places and time vividly back, while family tragedies are balanced with hijinks and truly kid-friendly disgusting things. (Read the review at a Fuse #8 Production for many more details!)
Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeon Club: Roll Call. by Molly Knox Ostertag, illustrated by Xanthe Bouma. HarperAlley, 2022. ISBN 9780063039247. Read from a library copy. Can D&D save the middle school experience? Jess and her best friend Olivia have been playing just the two of them for ages, where Jess plays the brave lone knight Sir Corian. Now Olivia wants more people to join the campaign – but Jess, who doesn’t fit gender norms well enough to fit in socially in general, is afraid. Maybe her safe space will be destroyed, or maybe having someone even lower on the social ladder than she is join will make her a target again. Scenes in middle school alternate with the unfolding D&D adventure – complete with an art style shift – in a story that works well on multiple levels. This was my D&D-loving kid’s absolute favorite of the whole list, one they read at least half a dozen times before we returned it.
Saving Chupieby Amparo Ortiz. Illustrated by Ronnie Garcia. HarperAlley, 2023. ISBN 9780062950284. Read from a library copy. Violeta Rubio loves her abuela and is excited to go to Puerto Rico for the first time to help restore and reopen the restaurant that her Abuela ran before the hurricane. She’s disappointed and bored when her family refuses her help, and disgusted when the only kids her age she meets are interested in looking for the legendary chupacabra – who would believe those fairy tales? But when Violeta actually finds an adorable baby chupacabra, she’ll do anything in her power to keep it safe. Can she bring herself to trust her new friends enough to help?
I started this blog Livejournal quite casually, just posting short summaries of books I’d read for my existing online friends, with no concept of trying to build an audience. It’s rather astounding to find myself still here 20 years later, still not great at self-promotion, but with a broader audience, more in-depth reviews, and having discovered so many like-minded people through book blogging and the Cybils Awards! Thank you so much to all of you who make up this book-loving community!
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