Review of Mr. Wuffles! by David Wiesner

Animal Characters, Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Mr. Wuffles!

by David Wiesner

Clarion Books (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Boston, 2013. 32 pages.
Starred Review
2013 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #8 Picture Books

How does he think these things up? Three-time Caldecott winner David Wiesner knows how to tell a story with pictures, and they usually have a surreal element. This one is no exception.

Mr. Wuffles is a black and white cat. On the title page he walks past toys bought for him with all the nonchalance a cat can express. But one little metal sphere is not a toy. We zoom in to see aliens peering out through a window.

Unfortunately for them, Mr. Wuffles notices them, plays with the spaceship, and damages it. Now the aliens must go on a quest to repair their spaceship – with help from some friendly insects who live in a hole in the wall and also fear the cat.

The whole adventure is wonderfully done, and kids will love noticing the details and telling you what’s happening. The aliens speak with one another – but their words are expressed with speech bubbles containing strange shapes, emphasizing that they are speaking another language. The insects speak with a series of splotches. I love the primitive “cave paintings” on inside of the wall. The aliens add to this to communicate their predicament and get help.

After they repair their spaceship part, they must get it to their ship and get the ship away, all without being captured by Mr. Wuffles. And the human who lives in the house is oblivious to it all. The book ends with the insects commemorating the story of what happened in pictures on their wall.

You and your kids will want to examine this book many times to catch the details. Another brilliant offering from a picture book genius.

hmhbooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/mr_wuffles.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Children’s Book-a-Day Almanac, by Anita Silvey

Creativity, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Children’s Book-a-Day Almanac

365 days of history, holidays, and events

365 great children’s books — one for every day of the year

by Anita Silvey

Roaring Brook Press, New York, 2012. 388 pages.
Starred Review
2013 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #5 Nonfiction

Children’s Book-a-Day Almanac is the print form of Anita Silvey’s wonderful blog, also called Children’s Book-a-Day Almanac. I’d been following the blog, so when I learned there was a print book, I made sure to get a copy, and have delved into it daily for all of 2013.

Anita Silvey’s knowledge of children’s books is vast. For each day of the year, she recommends a children’s book with some connection to that date, and gives you a taste of the book and why it is worth reading. As well, each day has a sidebar with facts about that day — children’s authors born that day, as well as other famous people, historic events, and holidays you might not have known about (like “I Love Horses Day” or “Smile Power Day”) — all with related book recommendations.

I was extra happy when I saw she’d listed one of my all-time favorite books, Anne of Green Gables, on my birthday, June 14.

The only catch? It would be hard to read all these books in a year. Now, I’ve read enough already, that I really should take it on as a project one year to read all the ones listed that I haven’t read before. And then the next year, I could try to read at least one of the additionally recommended books for each day, and on and on it could go.

One thing I’m sure of: I read many of the books listed here on Anita Silvey’s recommendation, and I was never disappointed. What you have here is a full year of great reading.

mackids.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/childrens_book_a_day_almanac.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own copy, purchased through Amazon.com.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Look Up! by Annette LeBlanc Cate

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Look Up!

Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard

by Annette LeBlanc Cate

Candlewick Press, 2013. 54 pages.
Starred Review

This wonderful book explains to kids how to get started bird-watching. The author is an artist who also encourages kids to sketch the birds they see. Her own illustrations in this book are not intimidating, and she tells the reader that you will get better with practice, and points out what things to notice.

She tells you how to get started and why to get started. Also where to get started (anywhere!). Here’s where she talks about sketching birds:

Try to sketch while keeping your eyes on the bird as much as you can. This takes practice, but it’s so worth doing. Don’t worry about how “good” your picture is – the act of drawing is valuable no matter what the result looks like, because when we draw, we look extra, extra hard, and that helps us focus our attention. There’s so much to pay attention to – shape, color, sound, and more! So let’s take each aspect one at a time.

Then the book looks in more detail at these aspects of birds, to help you learn to identify them. She wraps up by explaining how to use field guides, bird habitats, and classification.

There’s so much crammed into this book! It makes bird-watching seem accessible and even fun! As if the main text weren’t enough, most pages have speech bubbles coming from the birds, who give wisecracks that make information about them even more memorable.

This book is clearly a labor of love. She says right at the start that she’s not an expert bird-watcher. “I just really love birds.”

candlewick.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/look_up.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? by Brian D. McLaren

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?

Christian Identity in a Multi-faith World

by Brian D. McLaren

Jericho Books, New York, 2012. 276 pages.
Starred Review
2013 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #8 Nonfiction

This is an important book for Christians to read if they want to interact with today’s society. (If they want to just hide out apart from the world, then they shouldn’t bother.) I like the questions Brian McLaren poses, and I like the thoughtful and thought-provoking answers he gives.

At the beginning of the book, he talks about the identity problem Christians have:

Simply put, we Christians already know how to do two things very well. First, some of us know how to have a strong Christian identity that responds negatively toward other religions. The stronger our Christian commitment, the stronger our aversion or opposition to other religions. The stronger our Christian commitment, the more we emphasize our differences with other faiths and the more we frame those differences in terms of good/evil, right/wrong, and better/worse. We may be friendly to individuals of other religions, but our friendship always has a pretext: we want them to switch sides and be won over to our better way. We love them (or say that we do) in spite of their religious identity, hoping that they will see the light and abandon who they have been to find shelter under the tent of who we are.

Alternatively, others of us know how to have a more positive, accepting response to other religions. We never proselytize. We always show respect for other religions and their adherents. We always minimize differences and maximize commonalities. But we typically achieve coexistence by weakening our Christian identity. We make it matter less that they are Muslim or Hindu by making it matter less that we are Christian. We might even say that we love them in spite of our own religious identity.

For reasons that will become clear in the pages ahead, I’m convinced that neither of these responses is good enough for today’s world. So I will explore the possibility of a third option, a Christian identity that is both strong and kind. By strong I mean vigorous, vital, durable, motivating, faithful, attractive, and defining — an authentic Christian identity that matters. By kind I mean something far more robust than mere tolerance, political correctness, or coexistence: I mean benevolent, hospitable, accepting, interested, and loving, so that the stronger our Christian faith, the more goodwill we will feel and show toward those of other faiths, seeking to understand and appreciate their religion from their point of view. My pursuit, not just in this book but in my life, is a Christian identity that moves me toward people of other faiths in wholehearted love, not in spite of their non-Christian identity and not in spite of my own Christian identity, but because of my identity as a follower of God in the way of Jesus.

This book explores those ideas in detail, and lays out what a strong benevolent identity can mean for our doctrine and our liturgy and our sense of mission.

I read this book over a long period of time. (I kept having to turn it in because it had holds.) I think I’m going to buy myself a copy and read it over again, because there’s much in here that I want to absorb more fully.

This is well worth reading. And if you disagree, it would be worth analyzing why you disagree. How do you think Christians should interact with today’s multi-faith world?

brianmclaren.net
jerichobooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/why_did_jesus.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

2013 Sonderbooks Stand-outs!

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Announcing my 2013 Sonderbooks Stand-outs!

I always wait until the year is over to announce my Stand-outs for the year, since I’m always reading right up until the last day of the year. This year, I’m in California visiting my family, so I’m not sure how soon I’ll get the chance to put up the permanent webpage for my Sonderbooks Stand-outs, but I’m at least getting the chance tonight to list my choices.

Here’s how it works: At the end of the year, I announce my personal favorites of the books I have read over the year. I just posted my stats for the year, and then remembered one picture book I’d read and reviewed this year that is not on my list, so I did hit 300 picture books!

My totals were 300 picture books,
59 books of children’s fiction,
35 books of teen fiction,
24 books of fiction for adults,
73 books of children’s nonfiction (many of which were picture books),
47 books of nonfiction for adults,
and 13 books of various levels that I’ve read some time before.

For a total of 551 books read in 2013. So you see, my Stand-outs have to be excellent to stand out!

I will not rank the rereads — those are my favorite books anyway, and I refuse to compare Pride and Prejudice with The Blue Castle. All the rest I’ll rank within the categories listed above, bearing in mind that this is purely subjective. It also does not reflect any committee I’m on, and doesn’t mean I necessarily think these are the highest quality books I read — they are simply the ones I enjoyed the most.

Yes, I’m a Cybils second-round judge, but I had only read two of the Finalists by the end of the year, anyway, and I haven’t yet discussed them with the other judges. I do like it that those two books were already my favorite Children’s Fiction read this year — and I’m planning to reread them, so the order between just those two may well change.

I’ve written reviews for all of my stand-outs, but a few of those reviews haven’t been posted yet. I will fill them in as soon as possible, as well as update their listings on my main website.

Beginning with Children’s Fiction:

1. The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud
2. Jinx, by Sage Blackwood
3. Doll Bones, by Holly Black
4. The Runaway King, by Jennifer A. Nielsen
5. Better Nate Than Ever, by Tim Federle
6. Heaven Is Paved with Oreos, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Young Adult Fiction:

1. Across a Star-Swept Sea, by Diana Peterfreund
2. Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell
3. Dark Triumph, by Robin LaFevers
4. Midwinterblood, by Marcus Sedgwick *
5. Raven Flight, by Juliet Marillier
6. Every Day, by David Levithan
7. Days of Blood and Starlight, by Laini Taylor
8. Dodger, by Terry Pratchett
9. Conjured, by Sarah Beth Durst

Fiction for Adults:

1. The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker
2. The Seer of Sevenwaters, by Juliet Marillier
3. Flame of Sevenwaters, by Juliet Marillier
4. Sense and Sensibility, by Joanna Trollope
5. A Week in Winter, by Maeve Binchy
6. Heart’s Blood, by Juliet Marillier
7. A Natural History of Dragons, by Marie Brennan

Nonfiction for Adults:

1. Living and Loving After Betrayal, by Steven Stosny
2. Runaway Husbands, by Vikki Stark
3. Let Go Now, by Karen Casey
4. Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, by Nina Sankovitch
5. Children’s Book-a-Day Almanac, by Anita Silvey
6. Cold Tangerines, by Shauna Niequist
7. Christianity After Religion, by Diana Butler Bass
8. Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? by Brian D. McLaren
9. Top Dog, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Children’s Nonfiction:

1. That’s a Possibility!, by Bruce Goldstone
2. The Boy Who Loved Math, by Deborah Heiligman and LeUyen Pham
3. Look Up!, by Annette LeBlanc Cate
4. Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids, by Jerome Pohlen
5. Bomb, by Steve Sheinkin
6. Bedtime Math, by Laura Overdeck and Jim Paillot
7. Poems to Learn by Heart, by Caroline Kennedy and Jon J. Muth

And Picture Books:

1. Sophie’s Squash, by Pat Zietlow Miller and Anne Wilsdorf
2. The Dark, by Lemony Snicket and Jon Klassen
3. Frog Trouble, by Sandra Boynton
4. Flora and the Flamingo, by Molly Idle
5. Tiny Little Fly, by Michael Rosen and Kevin Waldron
6. Exclamation Mark!, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld
7. Paul Meets Bernadette, by Rosy Lamb
8. Mr. Wuffles!, by David Wiesner

There you have them! The highlights of my reading year! I hope you enjoy them, too!

Stand-out Authors: Second-Timers

Stand-outs 0

Here’s one last post about the authors who appeared on my 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs who have had Stand-outs in years past. This post will be about the twelve authors who are appearing this year for the second time. Most of these are only there the second time because I’ve only just discovered them. I’m looking forward to reading more of their work!

Let’s start with the one with the biggest gap. Back in 2002, Patricia Polacco had a #2 Sonderbooks Stand-out in Picture Books with the book Christmas Tapestry, a heart-warming picture book. This year’s Stand-out, The Art of Miss Chew, is yet another heart-warming picture book.

Another picture book author from this year, Kate DiCamillo, co-author of Bink and Gollie: Two for One, had a book on my 2003 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, her Newbery-winning The Tale of Despereaux, which came in at #3 in Children’s Fantasy.

And while I’m talking about Bink and Gollie: Two for One, I should mention that its illustrator, Tony Facile, appeared on my 2011 Sonderbooks Stand-outs with a book he illustrated and wrote himself, Mitchell’s License, my #3 choice in Picture Books in 2011. His style, developed in animation, works so well in picture books.

Back in 2004, another author with a picture book on the list this year had a children’s novel on the 2004 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. Kevin Henkes, author of my #1 Picture Book this year, Penny and Her Song, was #8 in Children’s Contemporary Novels in 2004 with Olive’s Ocean.

And one more picture book author from this year is a second-timer. Jon Klassen’s two Hat books, besides winning ALA recognition, were both Sonderbooks Stand-outs. This year’s offering and Caldecott Medal winner, This Is Not My Hat was #4 in Picture Books on my 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. Last year’s I Want My Hat Back was also #4 in Picture Books, but this one was on my 2011 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

This year’s Caldecott Medalist is a Second-Timer to Sonderbooks Stand-outs, and so is this year’s Newbery Medalist, Katherine Applegate. The Newbery Medal-winning book, The One and Only Ivan, was #2 in Other Children’s Fiction on 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, but I first discovered her writing in 2009, when Home of the Brave was #1 in Other Children’s Fiction on my 2009 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. (And I usually don’t like prose poems! In both these cases — gorilla or immigrant without much command of English — it seemed completely appropriate.)

And another Newbery Medalist first appeared on my 2009 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, but for Rebecca Stead, it was the earlier book, When You Reach Me, that won the Newbery Medal. It also was my #1 in Children’s Fantasy and Science Fiction. This year, with Liar and Spy, she was #4 in Other Children’s Fiction.

And yet another Newbery Honoree first showed up in 2009. Grace Lin’s Newbery Honor Book, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, was #5 in Children’s Fantasy and Science Fiction on my 2009 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. This year, the companion novel, Starry River of the Sky, was also #5.

There’s one more Second-Timer in Children’s Fiction, and I’m happy to say that she’s a new writer. Her first two books have both been Sonderbooks Stand-outs, and I am hopeful there will be many more to come. Stephanie Burgis’s debut novel, Kat, Incorrigible was #4 in Children’s Fiction on my 2011 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. The follow-up, Renegade Magic, was #8 in Children’s Fantasy and Science Fiction on this year’s list.

One author of Children’s Nonfiction made the Sonderbooks Stand-outs for the second time this year. Philip Hoose had a #1 book on my 2009 Sonderbooks Stand-outs with Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, and this year he made my list again with Moonbird, at #9 in Children’s Nonfiction.

One writer of Nonfiction for adults appeared on my lists the same two years as Philip Hoose. Karen Casey’s book Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow was #2 in Other Nonfiction on my 2009 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. That led directly to my purchasing Each Day a New Beginning, which was #7 in Other Nonfiction on this year’s list.

Finally, one last Second-Timer is the only one writing novels for adults. Chris Cleave first appeared on my 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs with the stunning novel Little Bee. Little Bee was #4 in Fiction, and is a book I will remember all my life. (It was only the disturbing nature of the book that got more pleasant books ranked above it. Powerful stuff, though.) This year’s book about the Olympics, Gold, was also #4, this time in Other Fiction (as opposed to Fantasy).

I hope I haven’t seen the last of these authors! May they write many more books, and may I love their future work as much as I did these. If you haven’t caught these books from the past, I highly recommend them. At least with these second-timers, you can easily catch up!

Stand-out Authors: Third-Timers

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I’m winding down my posts about authors who were not newcomers to my Sonderbooks Standouts list this year. Six authors had a total of 3 Stand-outs, and twelve authors appeared for the second time. I have a feeling most of those will surely appear again in the future. Tonight I’m going to highlight the six authors who appeared on my Stand-outs list this year for the third time.

First, I have to mention Patrice Kindl, whose book, Owl in Love was reviewed in the very first issue of Sonderbooks.

I began Sonderbooks as an e-mail newsletter in August 2001, and Owl in Love was the Young Adult Fiction representative in Sonderbooks #1. Then it made my 2001 Sonderbooks Stand-outs list, along with a book by Patrice Kindl I’d read earlier in the year, Goose Chase. Both were Young Adult Fantasy, and Owl in Love was #4, and Goose Chase was #6.

This year, Patrice Kindl’s book Keeping the Castle was #7 in Teen Fiction. She is the author with the biggest gap between Stand-out years. I was so happy to find another book of hers to read!

Next I want to mention Diana Peterfreund, who had my favorite book of the year in 2009, Rampant, that innovative fantasy about killer unicorns. The sequel, Ascendant, was #5 in Teen Fantasy and Science Fiction in my 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

And in this year’s Sonderbooks Stand-outs, Diana Peterfreund’s For Darkness Shows the Stars, a science fiction retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion was #2 in Teen Fiction and right up there among my favorite books of the year. I’m discovering a trend: When Diana Peterfreund publishes a book, it’s going to be one of my favorites of the year.

Moving to Children’s Fiction, my #1 non-science-fiction-or-fantasy children’s novel of the year was Summer of the Gypsy Moths, by Sara Pennypacker, another 3-timer.

Her other Sonderbooks Stand-outs were both books about the irrepressible Clementine. The first book, Clementine, was #2 in Children’s Fiction in my 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. The latest book in the series, Clementine and the Family Meeting, was #7 in Children’s Fiction in my 2011 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.. Will Sara Pennypacker keep up her streak in 2013?

Two authors of Children’s Nonfiction also have three Stand-outs. Steve Jenkins broke into the lists in 2004, when I discovered his amazing book Actual Size. It was #1 in Children’s Nonfiction in my 2004 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

His detailed cut-paper illustrations never cease to amaze me, and when he combined them with such fascinating information as is found in Never Smile at a Monkey, he made my 2009 Sonderbooks Stand-outs at #4 in Children’s Nonfiction. And this year, he won me over with science and math facts both in Just a Second, which was #6 in Children’s Nonfiction.

Another third-timer has written Children’s Nonfiction in previous years, but this year Candace Fleming made the 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs with a picture book. Oh No! was #9 in Picture Books in a stellar year for picture books.

Her nonfiction Stand-outs were The Lincolns, #2 in Children’s Nonfiction in my 2009 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, and Amelia Lost, #5 in Children’s Nonfiction on my 2011 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

Finally, one adult Nonfiction writer has a total of three Sonderbooks Stand-outs. Immaculee Ilibagiza broke onto my 2009 Sonderbooks Stand-outs with my top two favorite nonfiction books of the year, Left to Tell, and Led by Faith, both powerful stories of forgiveness and faith about her miraculous survival of the Rwandan genocide.

This year’s 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out, The Boy Who Met Jesus was #6 in Nonfiction: Personal Stories. Immaculee knows how to make miraculous events seem completely believable and incredibly personal.

For all of these authors, I’ll be very surprised if they don’t rack up some more Stand-outs before they finish writing. I’ll be eagerly looking for more of their books.

Stand-out Author: John Green

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One of the lovely things about this being my 12th year of posting Sonderbooks Stand-outs, my favorite books of my reading year, is that I can take the long view. I’m doing a series on Stand-out Authors featuring people with a book on my 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs who have appeared on my lists before.

There were four authors with 5 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, and there are six with 3. But only one author has a total of 4 Sonderbooks Stand-outs: John Green.


(Here are David Levithan and John Green when I accosted them at the opening of the 2010 ALA Annual Conference Exhibits.)

My son got me following John’s video blog years ago, but I may have been attracted to An Abundance of Katherines by the mathematical symbols on the cover and the storyline that included a math genius. That was the year I didn’t get all my stand-outs reviewed, but An Abundance of Katherines was #4 in Contemporary Teen Fiction on my 2007 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

Now, really I suppose I should say that John Green has 3.33 Sonderbooks Stand-outs (which is a cool number in itself). Because on my 2008 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, he had 1.33 books make an appearance. Paper Towns was #2 in Contemporary Teen Fiction, and Let It Snow was #3. Since he only wrote a third of Let It Snow, the rest being written by Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle, you can see why I say he has 3.33 Stand-outs.

And then there was this year’s Sonderbooks Stand-out, the truly outstanding The Fault in Our Stars. This was #9 in Teen Fiction, but this time I didn’t separate out the Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Contemporary. The Fault in Our Stars was, in fact, the only Contemporary Teen Novel to appear on my list this year, so that makes it #1 in its category.

At the start of 2012, I got to hear John speak at ALA Midwinter Meeting in Dallas, and he’s a great speaker as well. I’m happy that he’s young — because the chances are good that he will write many more great books before he’s done. He never forgets to be Awesome!

Stand-out Author: Mercedes Lackey

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I’m doing a series on authors on my 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out List who have appeared on my lists before. There’s one author left with a total of 5 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, Mercedes Lackey.

I remember I read some of Mercedes Lackey’s books before I ever started writing Sonderbooks in 2001. The only one that stood out as exceptional to me was Firebird. That one’s a fairy tale retelling, so perhaps it’s not surprising that when Mercedes Lackey began her Tales of the 500 Kingdoms — all playing off of fairy tales — that’s when she consistently got counted among my favorites. I’ve always enjoyed fairy tale retellings, and I love these. So often, they point out what’s odd about the fairy tale, and play off the Tradition with humor and insight and a whole lot of fun.

All of the five stand-outs are from the Tales of the 500 Kingdoms. The first one, The Fairy Godmother, sets the stage for all the rest. Apparently, I was still holding out when I first read it, since it wasn’t a 2004 Stand-out. But with the next book, One Good Knight, she hit the 2006 Sonderbooks Stand-outs at #3 in Romance Fiction.

In my 2007 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, she ranked even higher with Fortune’s Fool at #2 in Fantasy Fiction. (That was the year I didn’t get all my reviews of stand-outs written.)

I remember I liked the books so much, I purchased the next book, The Snow Queen — and then neglected reading it because it didn’t have a due date like all the library books I had checked out. When I finally got around to reading it, it was a 2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out, coming in at #4 in Fantasy Fiction.

This past year, I decided it was time to catch up on the series. (Of course, I was sad when I had done so. I liked knowing there was another one of the books out there I could read.) Both were 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs in Fantasy Fiction, Beauty and the Werewolf taking #2, and Sleeping Beauty at #3.

This series doesn’t necessarily have to be read in order, though you might want to start with The Fairy Godmother, which lays the groundwork. But they are all so much fun, you won’t want to miss any!

Stand-out Author: Garth Nix

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I’m doing a series on 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out Authors who are returning to my list, in other words, my Favorite Authors. Four different authors have a total of 5 Stand-outs, and tonight I’ll be featuring Garth Nix.

Some books are so good, I can always remember the experience of reading them the first time and where I was when I read them. I remember reading Sabriel on Christmas vacation, when our family was driving from San Diego to Phoenix. It had been recommended to me by both my son and my husband, and I was blown away by how good it was.

Of course, when I got home from the trip, I immediately had to read the next two books, Lirael and Abhorsen. In a way, I was lucky I’d taken my time getting around to reading the first one, since they were all published by the time I did, and I could devour them as fast as possible. (Rats! Just writing about them makes me want to read them again! I don’t have time to put my life on hold right now, since I’m buying a house. I will have to resist!)

All three books of this series made my 2004 Sonderbooks Stand-outs in Young Adult Fantasy. Sabriel was #3, and Lirael and Abhorsen were #9 and #10, respectively.

I still hadn’t had enough of Sabriel’s World, and when a book of short stories and a novella came out in 2005, Across the Wall, it made my 2005 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, #6 in Young Adult Fantasy.

Finally, this year, Garth Nix is back on the list, this time with something totally different, a Science Fiction story rather than a Fantasy. I listened to A Confusion of Princes on audiobook, and I was completely absorbed, almost too absorbed for driving! On my 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, it was #8 in Young Adult Fiction. (I didn’t divide the genres this year.)

Another cool thing that happened this year, was I got to meet Garth Nix at the Margaret Edwards Luncheon! (And, yes, he’s Australian, so he has a cute accent, too!) I was sad that I had not yet read A Confusion of Princes, so I couldn’t tell him how great I thought it was. Anyway, now I’m telling all my readers: Garth Nix’s books are the sort you will remember forever. Stand-outs after one year, but also after eight years.