I promised to announce my list of Sonderbooks Stand-outs before the Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz Award winners are announced, so I only have about seven more hours.<\/p>\n
Not that I am trying to predict those winners. I am not making claims that these are the most distinguished books of the year, or even the highest literary quality. I choose Sonderbooks Stand-outs simply based on which books I enjoyed the most. After a year of reading, these are the books that stand out in my mind and make me smile. I chose these from all the books I read in 2009. (I decided in 2007 to do like the Newbery Medal and give the year as the year when the books were chosen, not when they were first read.)<\/p>\n
I will divide the books into categories, so I don’t have to compare dissimilar books. Within each category, I’ve ranked the books by how much I enjoyed them. Each category except Rereads, that is. This year I revisited some of my all-time favorite books, some on audiobooks, and I don’t have the heart to rank any of them as less than Number One. But I want to call them Stand-outs, because they do stand out. So I’m listing them in alphabetical order by author.<\/p>\n
Here are my favorite reads from 2009, the 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs:<\/p>\n
Fantasy for Teens<\/strong> Other Teen Fiction<\/strong> Children’s Fantasy and Science Fiction<\/strong> Other Children’s Fiction<\/strong> Fiction<\/strong> Picture Books<\/strong> Nonfiction: True Stories<\/strong> Other Nonfiction<\/strong> Children’s Nonfiction<\/strong> Wonderful Rereads<\/strong> A Wrinkle in Time<\/a><\/em>, by Madeleine L’Engle I promised to announce my list of Sonderbooks Stand-outs before the Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz Award winners are announced, so I only have about seven more hours. Not that I am trying to predict those winners. I am not making claims that these are the most distinguished books of the year, or even the highest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stand-outs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n1. Rampant<\/a><\/em>, by Diana Peterfreund
\n2. Fire<\/a><\/em>, by Kristin Cashore
\n3. Forest Born<\/a><\/em>, by Shannon Hale
\n4. A Curse Dark as Gold<\/a><\/em>, by Elizabeth C. Bunce
\n5. Graceling<\/a><\/em>, by Kristin Cashore
\n6. Dreamdark: Silksinger<\/a><\/em>, by Laini Taylor
\n7. Once a Princess<\/a><\/em>, by Sherwood Smith
\n8. Lips Touch: Three Times<\/a><\/em>, by Laini Taylor
\n9. Princess of the Midnight Ball<\/a><\/em>, by Jessica Day George<\/p>\n
\n1. Marcelo in the Real World<\/a><\/em>, by Francisco X. Stork
\n2. Project Sweet Life<\/a><\/em>, by Brent Hartinger
\n3. Stealing Heaven<\/a><\/em>, by Elizabeth Scott
\n4. Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy<\/a><\/em>, by Gary D. Schmidt
\n5. The London Eye Mystery<\/a><\/em>, by Siobhan Dowd<\/p>\n
\n1. When You Reach Me<\/a><\/em>, by Rebecca Stead
\n2. The Graveyard Book<\/a><\/em>, by Neil Gaiman
\n3. Any Which Wall<\/a><\/em>, by Laurel Snyder
\n4. Odd and the Frost Giants<\/a><\/em>, by Neil Gaiman
\n5. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon<\/a><\/em>, by Grace Lin<\/p>\n
\n1. Home of the Brave<\/a><\/em>, by Katherine Applegate
\n2. Walk Two Moons<\/a><\/em>, by Sharon Creech
\n3. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry<\/a><\/em>, by Mildred D. Taylor
\n4. Lucky Breaks<\/a><\/em>, by Susan Patron
\n5. The Case of the Missing Marquess<\/a><\/em>, by Nancy Springer<\/p>\n
\n1. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society<\/a><\/em>, by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows
\n2. The Help<\/a><\/em>, by Kathryn Stockett
\n3. The Elegance of the Hedgehog<\/a><\/em>, by Muriel Barbery
\n4. Heart and Soul<\/a><\/em>, by Maeve Binchy
\n5. His Majesty’s Dragon<\/a><\/em>, by Naomi Novik
\n6. Still Life<\/a><\/em>, by Joy Fielding
\n7. The Marriage Bureau for Rich People<\/a><\/em>, by Farahad Zama<\/p>\n
\n1. Jeremy Draws a Monster<\/a><\/em>, by Peter McCarty
\n2. Orangutan Tongs<\/a><\/em>, by Jon Agee
\n3. Pigs Make Me Sneeze!<\/a><\/em> by Mo Willems
\n4. A Birthday for Bear<\/a><\/em>, by Bonny Becker, illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton
\n5. Bubble Trouble<\/a><\/em>, by Margaret Mahy and Polly Dunbar
\n6. The Lion and the Mouse<\/a><\/em>, by Jerry Pinkney
\n7. Little Panda<\/a><\/em>, by Renata Liwska<\/p>\n
\n1. Left to Tell<\/a><\/em>, by Immacule Ilibagiza
\n2. Led by Faith<\/a><\/em>, by Immacule Ilibagiza
\n3. I Do Again<\/a><\/em>, by Cheryl and Jeff Scruggs
\n4. French by Heart<\/a><\/em>, by Rebecca Ramsey<\/p>\n
\n1. The Trance of Scarcity<\/a><\/em>, by Victoria Castle
\n2. Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow<\/a><\/em>, by Karen Casey
\n3. The Sacred Romance<\/a><\/em>, by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
\n4. Loving What Is<\/a><\/em>, by Byron Katie
\n5. I Need Your Love — Is That True?<\/a><\/em> by Byron Katie
\n6. The Language of Letting Go<\/a><\/em>, by Melody Beattie<\/p>\n
\n1. Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice<\/a><\/em>, by Philip Hoose
\n2. The Lincolns<\/a><\/em>, by Candace Fleming
\n3. 14 Cows for America<\/a><\/em>, by Carmen Agra Deedy
\n4. Never Smile at a Monkey<\/a><\/em>, by Steve Jenkins<\/p>\n
\nin Alphabetical Order<\/p>\n
\nThe Last Battle<\/a><\/em>, by C. S. Lewis
\nThe Blue Sword<\/a><\/em>, by Robin McKinley
\nThe Hero and the Crown<\/a><\/em>, by Robin McKinley
\nWinnie-the-Pooh<\/a><\/em>, by A. A. Milne
\nCrown Duel<\/a><\/em>, by Sherwood Smith
\nThe Witch of Blackbird Pond<\/a><\/em>, by Elizabeth George Speare
\nThe Thief<\/a><\/em>, by Megan Whalen Turner
\nThe Queen of Attolia<\/a><\/em>, by Megan Whalen Turner
\nThe King of Attolia<\/a><\/em>, by Megan Whalen Turner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"