I have never liked doing a public scale rating of books – the librarian in me would rather describe what’s in the book and let you decide if it sounds good for you. But this year, for the first time since high school, I gave books number ratings on my own private spreadsheet. I shamelessly borrowed the Book Smuggler’s 10-point rating system for this, where 0 is “I want my time and my money back”, 5 is “meh” and so on. For my purposes, 7 is a book I enjoyed, 8 is one I loved and 9 is one I really, really loved. 10 only gets given out retrospectively to books I find myself re-reading and thinking about a lot – a true personal classic.

I gave only 3 books a score of 10 this year, and two of those were ones I’d read in previous years. Since that would be a really short list, I’m instead sharing with you all the books I rated 9 and above this year, divided up by age level. (I spend a long time typing this up, putting in all the 8 and above books. Then I realized it was almost 100 books – good for my happy reading, not so good for you having a manageable list. )  I will note also here, for my own self-esteem regarding diverse reading, that 19 of my 40 favorites here have diverse protagonists.

Picture Books
Journey by Aaron Becker
Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown
Petrosinella by Diane Stanley (reread)
Rapunzel by Paul O. Zelinsky (reread)
Sophie’s Squash by Pat Zietlow Miller

Early Chapter Books
Lulu and the Duck in the Park and Lulu and the Dog from the Sea by Hilary McKay
Princess in Black by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale
Stories Julian Tells by Ann Cameron (reread)

Middle Grade Books
Above World Trilogy by Jenn Reese
Ambassador by William Alexander
Bluffton by Matt Phelan
Boys of Blur by N.D. Wilson
Bud, not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis (reread)
Castle Behind Thorns by Merrie Haskell
Greenglass House by Kate Milford
Jinx’s Magic by Sage Blackwood
The Magic Thief series by Sarah Prineas
Renegade Magic, Stolen Magic and Courting Magic by Stephanie Burgis
Rose and the Lost Princess and Rose and the Magician’s Mask by Holly Webb
The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

Teen Books
Bad Luck Girl. American Fairy Trilogy Book 3 by Sarah Zettel
Black Dog by Rachel Neumeier
Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
The Broken Lands by Kate Milford
The City in the Lake by Rachel Neumeier
Cracks in the Kingdom by Jaclyn Moriarty
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Sinner  by Maggie Stiefvater
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett (reread)

Adult (or Grown-Up) Books
The Amazing Thing About the Way It Goes by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
The Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Traitors’ Gate by Kate Elliott
Velveteen vs. the Junior Super Patriots and Velveteen vs. the Multiverse by Seanan McGuire

See also last year’s much more restrained post: 2013 Part 2 – Favorites – and please tell me about your favorite books of the year!