Here at last are some of my top favorite books from 2016

First, my standard disclaimer about rating books:

“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 Smugglers’ 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.”

A full third of the books I read this year were 9 and above.  In the interests of saving your time, I have ruthlessly and with  suffering cut each category about in half, limiting myself to books that I kept on thinking about after reading went back to, though the shortness of the lists means that many beloved middle grade sequels were cut.  This year, too, I found myself going back to think about books that I hadn’t initially rated a 9 or 10.  I didn’t add them in here, because so many books! 7, for example, is still a really good book. But they do have a habit of turning up in other lists.

Picture Books

• Hoot Owl: Master of Disguise by Sean Taylor and Jean Jullien
• Jingle Dancer by Cynthia Leitich Smith
• Nobody Likes a Goblin by Ben Hatke
• Thunder Rose by Jerdine Nolan and Kadir Nelson

Early Chapter Books

• Anna Hibiscus by Atinuke
• Gloria’s Way by Ann Cameron
• Lulu and the Hamster in the Night by Hilary McKay
• The Princess in Black and the Hungry Bunny Horde by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale

Middle Grade

• The Birchbark House series by Louise Erdrich
• The Creeping Shadow by Jonathan Stroud
• The Exiles series by Hilary McKay
• The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
• The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz
• The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks
• Poison is Not Polite by Robin Stevens
• Space Hostages by Sophia McDougall
• War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
• When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin

Teen

• Keeper of the Mist by Rachel Neumeier
• Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona
• Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton
• Serpentine by Cindy Pon
• A Tangle of Gold by Jaclyn Moriarty
• A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston

Adult

• Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
• Lost Goddesses of Early Greece by Charlene Spretnak
• Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
• Mountain of Kept Memory by Rachel Neumeier
• Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

Favorite Rereads

• The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley (read to my son)
• The Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale (parallel listening with my son)
• Chrestomanci books by Diana Wynne Jones (listened to/ read to my son)
• Geeks, Girls and Secret Identities by Mike Jung (read to my son)
• Mistress Masham’s Repose by T.H. White
• The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater
• Tiffany Aching books by Terry Pratchett