Once again, icy weather and real life are making it hard to find time to look back at my book life.  But, here’s a look at the best of the books I read last year – so many happy book memories!

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.”

Let me know in the comments what books you loved last year!

Picture Books

• Crown: an Ode to the Fresh Cut by Derrick Barnes and Gordon C. James
• This is How We Do It by Matt Lamothe
• All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah by Emily Jenkins and Paul O. Zelinksy

Middle Grade

• All’s Faire in Middle School by Victoria Jamieson
• The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge by M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin
• Bluecrowne by Kate Milford
• Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones (with my son)
• Festival of Ghosts by William Alexander
• Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli and Francescao Cavallo (to my daughter)
• House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones (with my son)
• Nevermoor: the Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend
• Peasprout Chen: Future Legend of Skate and Sword by Henry Lien
• The Penderwicks at Last by Jeanne Birdsall
• Real Friends by Shannon Hale
• A Sky Full of Stars by Linda Williams Jackson
• The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O’Neill
• The Turning by Emily Whitman
• The War I Finally Won by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Teen

• All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater
• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
• Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust
• The Inexplicable Logic of My Life by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
• Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson
• Shadowhouse Fall by Daniel Jose Older
• Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman

Adult

• All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, and Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells (the first one aloud to my son after first reading it to myself)
• Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
• Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Rereads

• Fridays with the Wizards and Saturdays at Sea by Jessica Day George (with my daughter)
• Fyre by Angie Sage (started 2017, with my daughter)
• The Real Boy by Anne Ursu (with my son)
• Boneshaker by Kate Milford (with my children)
• Greenglass House by Katie Milford (to my son)
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (to my daughter)
• Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
• The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place Series by MaryRose Wood (with my daughter)
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle (with my daughter)
• The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Opinionated Knitter by Elizabeth Zimmerman
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline