Chapter I: NPR's Top 100 YA Novels - Or lists aren't lame! Sometimes.

So today I learned the term is "Library Assistant" but that doesn't have the same ring for the blog title. Drats. When I learn how to edit the blog title I shall try to remedy this error.

I am not going to review the quote reference from my last post as my first book review, it seems. That reference is to the series ElfQuest and I just don't believe I have the time to dedicate to something that was so influential to me growing up. So instead I'm going to link a list I found: NPR's Top 100 YA novels.

NPR's Top 100 YA Novels

Give it a gander and then bear with me as I touch on just a few of them. (You will soon learn I make huge blog posts. Blogger needs the LiveJournal option of hiding things beneath cut links.)

I'm hardly surprised that two breakout hits from the last decade and change have dominated the list. Harry Potter impacted me heavily, and I still reread the books (and write fanfiction and cosplay the characters and wow that series is apparently huge in my life), and while I'm not the biggest fan, The Hunger Games did a great job hooking more new readers. If you liked the series - and don't mind something just a little darker - a similar novel, Battle Royale, was the reason I read this series in the first place.

I'm pleased that so many classics managed to retain footholds in this list - especially The Giver Series (11th). Giver is easily the most influential book in my life, and since I had to read it in the third grade, I've read this novel once a year, and its sequels, Gathering Blue and Messenger every few years. I eagerly await the fourth book in the series, Son, and strongly encourage anyone who has read Giver to give the other books in the series a read. They aren't as strong an impact, but still exceptional. A little further down, at 17th, I had a laugh at The Princess Bride. The movie was one of my first favorites, and the book is witty and has the same irreverent style as the film.

Then I skim a lot of the list, because I haven't quite gotten a taste for authors Stephanie Meyer or Cassandra Clare or similar novelists, and some of them dominate the teens to thirties in the list. I fully appreciate their impact, and know enough about their books to recommend them, but I have much more on my plate.

I am more than a little surprised at the few literary fiction novels (that is, bookstore speak for grownup fiction) that made their way onto the list, most notably My Sister's Keeper (43rd). It has been on my to-read list for a while, and the fact that it has so many YA fans has only solidified this want. The same holds true for number 50, The Song of the Lioness Series.

And I've been at this for a while so I want to leave off with just three selections from the final fifty on the list. Many people who knew The Last Unicorn animated movie growing up don't realize that it was based on a beautiful novel by Peter S. Beagle (73rd). I've had the pleasure of meeting this wonderful man, and he's as great a person as he is an author. The book explores so much more than the movie, and it's a great insight on humanity. The graphic novel is equally beautiful. At 84 I found a surprise - that other people knew of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles. I grew up on this series, centering on a princess who doesn't want to be a normal princess, but does something most tomboys in fiction don't - she is strong and independent without being a male character in a female body. Leviathan squeaked in at 92. The novel is one of the first YA novels to introduce steampunk to the YA room, a tread I'd love to see continue.

I wish I had a fun picture to tie into this large wall of text. But I don't tonight. What books from the Top 100 are you happy or unhappy to see up there? What should have made the cut? I'd love to have more to add to my list of books to read (and by that I mean to add to the many bookshelves of books to read I own).