Friday, January 29, 2010

Arrgh!

I'm still working on my top 10 children's chapter books list. Right now I've got it down to thirty, after taking off almost all my old favorites that maybe I like so much because of nostalgia, rather than innate quality. but The Teddy Bear Habit totally holds up, and I didn't read Matilda until I was in my thirties, so not so much nostalgia there.

The True Meaning of Smekday Adam Rex
The Shadow Thieves Anne Ursu
The Wright 3 Blue Balliett
The Invention of Hugo Cabret Brian Selznick
Igraine The Brave Cornelia Funke
Toys Go Out: Being the Adventures of a Knowledgeable Stingray, a Toughy Little Buffalo, and Someone Called Plastic Emily Jenkins
Shakespeare's Secret Elise Broach
Fly by Night Frances Hardinge
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4) J.K. Rowling
The Teddy Bear Habit or How to Become a Winner James Lincoln Collier
The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy Jeanne Birdsall
Lunch Walks Among Us (Franny K. Stein, Mad Scientist) Jim Benton
The Diamond of Drury Lane Julia Golding
The Wall and the Wing Laura Ruby
Sisters Eight Bk 3: Georgia's Greatness (Sisters Eight) Lauren Baratz-Logsted
Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters Lesley M.M. Blume
Gideon the Cutpurse(The Gideon Trilogy: Book Two) Linda Buckley-Archer
The Willoughbys Lois Lowry
Whales on Stilts M.T. Anderson
Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls #1: Moving Day Meg Cabot
The Fairy-Tale Detectives (The Sisters Grimm, #1) Michael Buckley
• Odd and the Frost Giants Neil Gaiman
Dealing with Dragons (The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Book 1) Patricia C. Wrede
The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, #2) Philip Pullman
Larklight: A Rousing Tale of Dauntless Pluck in the Farthest Reaches of Space Philip Reeve
Matilda Roald Dahl
The London Eye Mystery Siobhan Dowd
The Wee Free Men Terry Pratchett
Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog Ysabeau S. Wilce

So far, the only help the Offspring have been is to choose Georgia's Greatness as their favorite of the Sisters Eight books, because "it has the most excitement and none of that valentine stuff". Fair enough, although so far I think Dorinda's special skill is the coolest.

Choosing favorites is hard.

7 comments:

Rooie said...

Good list! I see some of my favorites there, for sure. Let's see...do these books have to be in print? Hmmm...this may be a fun little exercise.

Kaethe said...

No, they don't have to be currently in print. Just pick your ten favorite middle grade chapter books of All Time.

Karen Carr said...

I like your list, especially since there's books here I havent read yet. Good recommendations.

Kaethe said...

Thanks, KFran! I'm afraid few of my books made it into the top 100. Sigh. I'm just too contemporary, I guess.

Anonymous said...

good picks and i assume that you have a great taste for books that have substantial content. i've read some of the books you've included in your list and might try reading the one's i've never heard of before, until i've read this entry.

by the way keathe, are your books available to be downloaded, ebooks perhaps?

uk bingo

Kaethe said...

desogw, I don't know. Not having any sort of reader device it hadn't occurred to me. What do you read ebooks on? Do you find that there are many available with illustrations?

Anonymous said...

hi keathe. yeah, i think you should try making your own ebook, it will help boost your popularity over the net. i've been reading some of the free courses from major universities lately like stanford, MIT, yale and oxford. here's the link:

http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

maybe you can get ideas from seeing those ebooks :)