Finally, I found a some time to go through the books I read in 2017 and pull together my top-rated books.  This is everything I read rated 9 and above.  The only thing I’ve cut in the interests of your time is this year’s Cybils shortlist, because every single book on that list also made my personal best-of-the-year list.

Here is 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 I do give 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.”

This is the first year since I’ve been doing this that I didn’t track or review any picture books. Even though I do still bring them home from time to time, both of my children have now moved out of picture books as their primary form of reading.  I am including here books that I reread this year.  Most of them are personal favorites that my children and I listened to in the car, but I did make time this year to listen (always listen, it seems, never read in print!) a few just for myself as well.

I’d love to hear what your favorite books of last year were as well!

Early Chapter

• Juana & Lucas by Juana Medina

Middle Grade

• A Crack in the Sea by H.M. Bouwman
• The Evil Wizard Smallbone by Delia Sherman
• Flying Lessons by Ellen Oh, Ed.
• Funny Girl by Betsy Bird, Ed.
• Ghosts of Greenglass House by Kate Milford
• Ratpunzel and Giant Trouble by Ursula Vernon
• Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead
• The Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones
• Orphan Island by Laurel Snyder
• A Properly Unhaunted Place by William Alexander
• Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth by Frank Cottrell Boyce
• Wolf Hour by Sara Lewis Holmes

Teen

• #NotYourPrincess by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale
• Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han
• American Street by Ibi Zoboi
• Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
• The Empty Kingdom,the  Lion Hunter and Sunbird by Elizabeth Wein
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
• When the Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore
• March Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell

Adult

• Roses and Rot by Kat Howard
• Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
• Binti and Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor
• Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

Rereads

• Beauty by Robin McKinley
• The Birchbark House and the Game of Silence by Louise Erdrich (with my daughter)
• The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff (audio with my son)
• Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series by Maryrose Wood (audio with my daughter)
• The Magic Thief by Sarah Prineas (audio with my son)
• Magyk series by Angie Sage (audio with my son)
• Saffy’s Angel and Indigo’s Star by Hilary McKay
• The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
• The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
• Tuesdays at the Castle series by Jessica Day George (audio with my daughter)