So this library/book blog that I love, Fuse #8, is doing this amazing poll to round up the Top 100 Middle Grade Readers (chapter books you read in elementary and early middle school, up to age 12 or so) of all time. And everyone is invited to send a list of your top ten books, in order, to the blogger to be compiled into the big list. It is awesome. She did it with picture books last year but the chapter books will be much less predictable. You only have a day left to participate in this extremely teacher/librarian/author-centric activity.
Anyway, this other cool blog posted a fun list about her top ten - she didn't give away the books she voted for but posted information about the books. I decided this looked fun to copy.
1. Like the list I am copying, one author is male and nine are female.
2. Two of the books have been made into mainstream movies, but I only saw one of them.
3. Half of the books were things I read over and over as a child. The other half I found in graduate school or my school library internship.
4. Four of the books are part of various series, though two others have sequels or related books.
5. Two of the ten were published in 1999. None are newer than that. The oldest book was published in 1962.
6. The top three are all Newbery Medal winners. They cover a span of 36 years (though two of them are only 4 years apart).
7. I read the tenth book on the list 27 times in a row when I was seven years old. Most children do not read it at seven years old, though.
8. I read the fourth book on this list to my Fourth Graders every single year.
9. I consider the second book on this list to be one of the finest examples of plot I have ever read, in a kid or adult book.
10. I never owned a copy of the seventh book on this list. I used to check it out of the library over and over but could never remember the title but I knew just where it was in the kid's section (a true librarian already). Many years later, during my internship with the librarian who is now a close friend, I walked into her library and saw it sitting there and knew immediately it was that book whose title I could never remember. And then she told me about how she had also loved it as a child and then forgotten its name and then refound it when she first started working in children's books. And then we were bonded forever. Which is what happens with awesome books.
