Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Top 100 Children's Novels

I was at home with a brand-new baby when the School Library Journal's Top 100 Children's Novels list came out in mid-April, so I'm definitely behind the curve on this one. However, I love me some lists, so it was fun to look this one over (filled with the help of multiple entries from J.K. Rowling, Roald Dahl and Judy Blume) and count how many I've read. I also loved this second-grade teacher's breakdown - with charts and graphs! - of the list. Book-nerdy fun. It's interesting that series books accounted for 61 of the 100 books and that a good percentage were written in the past 20 years or so.

Anyway, I've read 30 out of 100 of the children's novels. Which is just OK, I think, but also considering several were written after I was of age to read these types of books (Harry Potter notwithstanding). And several bring back fond memories: anything Ramona; The BFG (which I can't help but think about every time I write my initials ABFG); The Witch of Blackbird Pond (I forgot about that book!); and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (reading aloud in sixth grade.)

What about you? How many have you read?

For more fun, see last year's list of Top 100 Picture Books. I've also read about 30 of these, and we have a few on the shelf as we speak.

[Quick pet peeve note: Why does Blogger insist that "children's" is misspelled? Drives me crazy!]

2 comments:

manda said...

I counted 15. Maybe more, though. If I couldn't remember reading it, but felt like I might have read it I left it off. As I read Secret Garden this month I was thinking about how much fun it's going to be to read to Mason and Gwen when they are old enough. We could have a little book club! And since we have plenty of the top 100 to explore we'll have plenty of books to select from!

Lawyerish said...

I've read 47 of these! I would love to go back and re-read almost every single one of them, too.

Every few years I re-read "Harriet the Spy", and every single time I am astonished at how good it is and how much I love it.