Top Ten Books Written In The Past 10 Years That I Hope People Are Still Reading In 30 Years

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is Top Ten Books Written In The Past 10 Years That I Hope People Are Still Reading In 30 Years. That means books that have been released between 2002 and now, if you're very bad at math.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. I really don't think there's any question about it: the Harry Potter books will be read for a long time. I volunteer at my library's bookshop, and if a Harry Potter book comes in it will be sold within a few hours. They're the only books I can think of that have been out for over a decade (at least the early ones) but sell so fast. I read the first book in school and I won't be surprised if other schools continue to do the same in the future.

2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. With the movie out for a few months, The Hunger Games' popularity is at its height. While things will die down once Mockingjay comes out, I hope people will continue to read this book for years to come. This book could also be a good book to read in schools. 

3. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffeneggger. One of my favourite books, I think that this is a timeless love story that can appeal to anyone.

4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. This story about the power of words and a young girl who lives in Germany during the Third Reich should be read by everyone. You can read my review here. 

5. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. This book is so well written that everyone should read it, even in 2042. 

6. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. This book is kind of an acquired taste, but I love it. Weird thought: what if in 2042 this book had come true? 2042 seems so far away that anything could happen. 

7. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I think this book could be a classic. Great book that will never feel dated. 

8. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I love this book, and since it's about 9/11 it captures one of most influential events of the 21st century, so far. You can read my review here. 

9. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. This is such an amazing book that I think will be ageless and always wonderful. It's also just so well written and heartbreaking that it would be a pity if it ever became forgotten. You can read my review here. 

10. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. This is a great book with some beautiful illustrations. That combined with the writing and the original story make it a book that should become a classic for children. You can read my review here. 

11. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. This is a great book for kids that's full of fun and riddles. I love the whole series, but the first book is definitely the best. You can read my review here.

What books do you guys hope never stop being read? 

Review: A Curse Dark As Gold

Title: A Curse Dark As Gold
Author: Elizabeth C. Bunce
Publisher: Scholastic Books
Publication Date: March 1st, 2008
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Fairy Tale Retellings

When her father dies, Charlotte Miller is given the responsibility of the family mill, and will do anything to keep it running. The mill and the family that runs it is rumoured to be cursed, and while Charlotte doesn’t believe that, it’s easy to see that her family has had bad luck. With no grown sons in the family for generations, the mill constantly seems to be under hardship. When her estranged uncle becomes her guardian, the pressure to sell the mill begins to be put on Charlotte. When she discovers an unknown and massive debt of her father’s, things seem direr than ever. When a stranger arrives in town promising he can help, Charlotte makes a deal against her better judgment. As her debts grow deeper, she tries to learn the truth about her family’s curse. Charlotte will do anything to protect the mill, but to what price?

A Curse Dark As Gold is a retelling of the story of Rumpelstiltskin and the Miller’s Daughter, set in a fictional world that is reminiscent of England during the Industrial Revolution. This story has many differences from the original tale, removing the boasting father and the cruel king. It also looks at Rumpelstiltskin in a different and deeper light. The story centres around Charlotte, who is a strong young woman that carries the family mill after the death of her father. While the central romance in the story was forgettable, there was a strong heroine who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go after it. I found the story to be a bit slow moving but it was still well written. I liked how the writer created an original world that is similar to the 1700’s, only with magic. As a fairy tale retelling, this book is a unique and well thought out take on the original story. I liked how the author questioned the characters' motifs and tried to look at them in a different way. She also looks deeper at the story and at all the things the Brothers Grimm don’t tell us. It’s a retelling that is well executed and adds a lot to the original. Fans of fairy tales will enjoy this new take on a classic, which looks deeper into the hearts of the old characters. A Curse Dark As Gold is a story about desperation and the power of the past that will stay with you even after the last page.

4/5

In My Mailbox (40)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren, in which book bloggers post about the books they've bought, borrowed or received in the past week.

I shouldn't be allowed to work in a bookshop, especially when I'm not even getting paid. I buy books every week. At least they're cheap, though. This week I bought three books for $2: An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin, She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb and The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. I bought the first two books based on recommendations and the fact that I thought they looked pretty. I've already read The Westing Game and liked it enough to buy it.

Back in March I saw a copy of Wintertown by Steve Emond in a Barnes & Noble and was very interested in it, based on the description and the cover. As an aside, I know some people have complained about how Barnes & Noble has a YA paranormal section, but I like how it's set up. They have YA fiction divided into paranormal, adventure and realistic fiction. This makes it easier to find good books (hopefully like this one) in the section that most interests you. At Chapters, all the YA books are together alphabetically. Anyways, I found Wintertown at my library and decided to take it out. Steve Emond also did the book's illustrations. Also from the library I took out Rudy Red by Kerstin Gier. I like time travel so I'm hoping it will be good.

Also from the library, I took out Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynn Jones and the movie adaptation, directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Both were recommended to me by a reader named Alice- thank you! I see Diana Wynn Jones' books everywhere and this will be my first. Howl's Moving Castle will be my fourth Miyazaku film, after My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away. I loved them all! Since I read Matilda earlier in the week, I took out the movie from the library and re-watched it. As an adaptation of the book, I thought it was pretty good, aside from having it set in the wrong country. They kept pretty much everything from the book, while adding scenes that were true to the book's sense of humour. 

What new books did you receive this past week? 

Review: Bumped

Title: Bumped (Bumped #1)
Author: Megan McCafferty
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: April 26th, 2011
Genre: YA, Dystopia

In 2036, twins Harmony and Melody reunite after being separated at birth and raised in two different worlds. Harmony was brought up by a religious family in Goodside, raised from a young age to hopefully become a wife and mother before she finishes her teenage years. Melody’s parents are University professors who have lead her to become a top paid professional surrogate. A newly discovered virus causes sterility by the time teens turn approximately eighteen, so girls like Melody are paid to become pregnant. When Harmony shows up at Melody’s door, it seems like these two twin sisters couldn’t be more different. Now that both girls are sixteen, more pressure than ever is being put on them. For Harmony it’s to wed and have children, and for Melody it’s to become pregnant so she can have a free ride through college. While their lives couldn’t be more different, the one thing Harmony and Melody have in common is that their paths have already been chosen for them.

This is a funny little book, but probably not as appealing for fans of dystopia. Megan McCafferty is also the author of Sloppy Firsts, and this book is exactly as you would imagine a dystopian novel mashed with Jessica Darling. Thematically, this book is similar to many other dystopian fantasies, focusing on the importance of free choice. The style, however, is lacking the seriousness of most dystopia. I’d best describe this book as quirky, with all the silly slang and the style of writing. The main characters are twins, Harmony and Melody. Apart from the horrible choice of names, I liked them and the alternating points of view. While a lot of the characters felt like caricatures, I also liked Zen, who just wants to help people. The story was well paced and easy to get caught up in, and there were a few surprises along the way. Overall, I thought this book was entertaining, but it’s so different from other dystopian fiction that I’d say it’s more for fans of books like Sloppy Firsts. I enjoyed it enough that I will probably pick up the sequel eventually. While it didn’t have the depth of so many other YA dystopian novels, I still thought it was an interesting read.

3/5

“Faith is accepting what makes no sense, what we cannot prove, but know down deep in our souls is real.”

Review: The View from Saturday

Title: The View from Saturday
Author: E.L. Konigsburg
Publisher: Aladdin Paperbacks
Publication Date: January 1st, 1996
Genre: Junior Fiction, Realistic Fiction

When Mrs. Olinksi returns to teaching ten years after she became paraplegic in a car accident, she uses a uncustomary method when choosing the four sixth grade students to represent her class in the Academic Bowl. Mrs. Olinski could have picked anyone, but instead she chose Nadia, Noah, Ethan and Julian. Nadia has an interest in sea turtles and is the owner of a genius dog. Noah is a know-it-all who recently became the best man at a wedding at the last minute. Ethan is the overlooked younger brother and is enchanted with the musical The Phantom of the Opera. Julian went to boarding school in England and doesn’t fit in upstate New York. However, it is he who brings everyone together when her invites his three classmates over for Saturday afternoon tea. Together, they make the best Academic Bowl team their school has ever seen, nicknamed the Souls. No sixth grade team has ever qualified before, beating the eighth graders, and the Souls go on to conquer the competition. Together, the Souls compliment each other and make the perfect team. When Mrs. Olinski returned to teaching she had fears about how much sixth graders may have changed over the past ten years. But did she choose them or did they choose her?

This book came out when I was a kid, and I remember constantly hearing it praised. However, I never read it, mainly because back then I usually read mainly adventure and fantasy books. I finally read it on vacation this year, while we were driving through Georgia. At first, I wasn’t too interested in this book and didn’t like the section that was from Noah’s perspective. I didn’t like how the narration switched from third person to first person is each of the Souls’ chapters. While I still feel that a third person narration for the whole book would have worked better, things picked up and I ended up loving the story. Structurally, it felt more like a short story than a novel to me, perhaps because the plot mainly focuses on a small part of each character’s background and on the competition. We get to see a part of each character’s journey and how they know the answers to certain questions. I liked the characters, especially Julian, and how they reacted to certain things life throws at them. However, as I said before, each of their sections would have been more enjoyable if told in the third person. The moment I knew I loved this book was when Julian creatively invited everyone to his tea party. I thought that the story and the characters were unique and memorable. To be honest, this is a very simple story and I’m not sure if I would have appreciated it when I was nine or so, since I preferred books with lots of excitement. Now, I can appreciate books like this one that might not be action packed but are sweet stories about friendship. The View from Saturday is a charming book about what really makes a team.

4/5

“By the time they get to 6th grade honor roll, students won't risk making a mistake, and sometimes to be successful, you have to risk making mistakes.”

Great YA Books To Start Off Your Summer

Here in Canada today is Victoria Day, which is generally seen as the beginning of summer, even if it doesn't officially start until June 20th. With the temperature going up and the length of jeans going down, it's a good time to start reading books that will get you excited for summer.

Road Trip Reading
Whether you want a book to get you psyched for your next road trip or if you rather stay home and read about one instead, these books embody everything people love about road trips, minus you having to actually sit in a car for hours on end.

• Saving June by Hannah Harrington. After the death of her sister June, Harper is confused and filled with so many questions she might never get the answer to. June had dreamed of going to California after graduation, and when Harper's divorced parents want to split June's ashes she decides to take things into her own hands. With her best friend Laney and a boy named Jake who somehow knew June, Harper takes off from Michigan to San Francisco looking for answers not only about June but about life and how she's supposed to go on after losing her sister. You can read my review here. 

• Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson. Now that her junior year is over, Amy is about to leave Southern California for Connecticut, where her mom is waiting for her in their new home. Some last minute changes result in Amy taking an unexpected road trip instead of flying out, so that the family car can be in Connecticut as well. Amy’s mom has planned the whole trip, including picking the driver. Roger is the son of an old family friend who is spending his summer with his dad in Philadelphia and needs a ride. The route Amy’s mom has planned is supposed to take four days, but Amy and Roger have a different idea. Instead of relying on the well planned out route they never chose, they decide to go on a few detours, completely abandoning the set route and taking much more time than four days. As they get to know each other while they put miles between them and California, they realize that it’s life’s detours that make the moments worth remembering. You can read my review here. 

• An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. After graduation, former child prodigy Colin decides to go on a road trip with his best friend. Colin has just been dumped by his nineteenth girlfriend. Everyone has a type and for Colin that type is girls named Katherine. In a relationship there's a dumper and a dumpee, and Colin is definitely the dumpee. He sets out find a way to create a formula that could determine how a relationship will end. But can love really be broken down into a formula? Paper Towns by John Green is also a great novel involving a road trip, and you can check out my review here. 

• Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. Winner of the 1995 Newberry Award, Walk Two Moons is the story of 13 year old Sal, who is going on a road trip with her grandparents to visit her mother. To keep the drive interesting, her grandparents ask her to tell a story, and she decides to tell them about her friend Phoebe. As they pass through different States and the story unfolds, another story- Sal's story- emerges as well. 

Travel 

Whether you're spending the summer abroad or at home, these books about adventure and love will make you want to hop on a plane and never look back. 

• Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. Anna should be spending her senior year of high school with her friends in Atlanta but instead she'd being sent to boarding school in Paris so that her Dad can appear impressive to his rich friends. Anna knows little about France and basically no French, but she soon adapts to life at boarding school. She falls for the gorgeous and unavailable Etienne St. Clair, while getting to know the City of Lights. You can read my review here. 

• 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson. Just as summer is starting, Ginny receives a package in the mail from her Aunt Peg instructing her to take a flight to London where she will be lead by a little blue envelope to her next destination. This all isn't that strange for Aunt Peg, but the fact is that Ginny's aunt has been dead for months. Taking her on a trip throughout Europe with her aunt's instructions, Ginny finds herself doing things she never would have done without her aunt's guiding. 

Pool Side Reading

Whether you're spending the day at the pool, the beach or just at home, these summer loving books are the perfect companion for any day you just want to relax with a good book. 

• The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han. Belly spends every summer at her mom's best friend's summer house in Cousins. Some of the best moments of her life have been spent there, but this summer things are changing. One of the best thing about Cousins is the boys: Jeremiah and Conrad. Belly has been in love with Conrad forever, and Jeremiah is her best friend. While Belly has always been like a little sister to Conrad, this summer things could be different.

• The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. I'm sure most people who are likely to read this book already have, but I couldn't write this list on good conscience without including The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. By now you probably know the story: four best friends since birth have to spend the summer apart and find a magical pair of jeans that fits them all perfectly. They send the pants back and forth all summer to keep them together while they're apart. While I didn't like the fifth book (which came out last year and isn't really YA) I love the first four books in the series. 

• Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. This is a quirky and original book that I'm sure some people will find strange, but I loved it! When the 50 contestants for the annual Miss Teen Dream Pageant set off on a plane ride to Paradise Cove, they expect a few days of tanning, water slides and practicing for the competition. Things do not go as planned when their plane crashes on a deserted island. The fourteen remaining girls have to fight to survive while preparing for the competition. These girls are no strangers to weird diets, but never did they imagine having to eat grubs. Or having to battle vicious snakes and catch fish with hair straighteners. Although the girls appear to be perfect and happy pageant contestants, things are much more complicated than that. Each girl has her secrets. If Miss Hampshire hates beauty pageants so much, then why is she in one? Why does Miss Nebraska wear a purity ring? Does Miss Mississippi love pageants as much as she says she does? Why is Miss Rhode Island so desperate to find her luggage? The girls work together to survive and grow close to one another. As time passes, it becomes clear that the island isn’t as deserted as the girls thought. You can read my review here.

• Basically anything by Sarah Dessen. Her books are easy to get caught up in and full of romance. Some ones I like include Just Listen, This Lullaby, Someone Like You, That Summer and The Truth About Forever. 

• Losing Forever by Gayle Friesen. Summer is here but while that should mean having fun and relaxing, it's hard for Jess to do that with so much changing in her life. Her mother is getting remarried and Jess' soon to be stepsister has come to live with them. Everything in Jess' life that she has been able to depend on so so long is changing, including her relationship with the boy next door. 

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. This book doesn't seem to fit with the others on this list, since it doesn't take place in summer or have a cover featuring the beach. All the same, I think this book could be a fun summer read that touches on some serious issues at the same time. Junior's spent his whole life living on the Spokane Indian Reservation, but things change when he decides to go to the public school outside of the reservation. Junior might be smart but at the same time things aren't easy for him, since he has epilepsy, a stutter, a lisp and has little money. And it's definitely not easy being the only Native American at his new school, excluding the school maskot. All the same, Junior is a budding cartoonist and through his drawings he looks at his life with humour. It feels like people on the reserve don't get to live their dreams, and Junior wants to change that for himself.

• Alice, I Think by Susan Juby. Aside from one disastrous day of first grade, Alice McLeod has been home schooled all her life. Now that she's 15 she's going to go to normal high school and hopefully come out unscarred. Alice's one unsuccessful try at public school ended with her having rocks thrown at her when she came to school dressed like Bilbo Baggins, after having read The Hobbit. Although Alice is still strange and doesn't fit in, she's hoping for things to change. 

10 Reasons Why I Still Read Children's Books

Anyone who reads my blog semi-frequently knows that I read junior fiction often enough, and a quick glance at my 'about me' will also let you know that I'm 22. In all honesty, there was a time in my teen years when I would never have read junior fiction, save Harry Potter, and I especially wouldn't have let myself be seen reading it. This was because a) my high school friends would have never let me live it down since, according to them, I was supposed to be smart and b) school had taught me that people were supposed to stick to their 'reading level.' Somehow I got the idea that we outgrow books like we outgrow our old jeans or our favourite Spice Girls band tee. Earlier this week I read an article for The New York Times by Joel Stein called "Adults Should Read Adult Books." Now, the author of this article actually hasn't read any of the books he mentions in his article (The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Twilight) so I didn't take his article too seriously (you can read a very good commentary on the article here.) While this article reminded me of one of my number one pet peeves (people judging others based on what they read) it also made me think about why I still read books that are written for children. Is it because I'm lazy and don't want to take the time to read an intellectually stimulating novel written for people my age? While people like Joel Stein would think so, here are the real reasons why I read kid-lit and why I will never stop.
1. I don't want to forget what it's like to be a kid. When I was a kid I was worried that I would turn into one of those adults who have completely forgotten what it was like to be a child (like Ms. Trunchbull in Roald Dahl's Matilda.) Fortunately, that has yet to really happen to me. Reading kid's books instantly helps me remember even more vividly than usual what it's like to be seven years old.  I never want to be one of the adults The Little Prince describes, or turn into a villain worthy of a Roald Dahl book. While not reading children's books definitely doesn't mean you will suddenly be unable to relate to children or become every kid's worst nightmare, I think reading children's lit helps ensure that you will never forget. It's nice to be able to read a book and find that it permanently holds a part of who you used to be and what it felt like to be that person.
2. I can learn a lot from books like The Little Prince, Peter Pan and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. And from so many other books for children. Sometimes books for kids are full of simplistic wisdom. The first that comes to mind is The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, which is pictured above (from PosteSecret.) In 91 pages this book can teach you about love, what's important in life and what you should never forget, no matter how old you are. When writing Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie was inspired to write a book about a boy who will never grow up based on the death of his older brother David, who died just short of his fourteenth birthday.  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is about the solitary journey into adulthood, the loss of childhood and how one can never go back. While Alice's sister dreams about Wonderland after hearing about it from Alice, she can't truly go there and even in her dream she knows it's not real. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman offers a different perspective on the fall in the Garden of Eden and equates the fall with consciousness, not sin. Harry Potter is not only about the battle of good versus evil between Harry and Voldemort, but also about the internal battle within us all.
3. I don't care if people judge me. If someone on a plane sees me reading The Penderwicks or The Invention of Hugo Cabret and assumes that I'm either lazy or not very bright, then that's fine. Fortunately for me, I'm confident enough with my intelligence to be seen reading a book that was written for ten year olds. When I was younger I didn't feel this way, as I mentioned earlier, but thankfully I've grown up enough not to care anymore. C.S. Lewis wisely said "When I became a man I put away childish things, such as the fear of childishness and the desire to be terribly grown up."
4. It can be just plain fun. I read for a lot of reasons: to discover things I didn't know before, to see the world through someone else's eyes, to find adventure, to learn about what was, to learn about what could be, to escape, to fall in love or to go to places I may never get to see in reality. But sometimes I just want to read a book that's a lot of fun. While it is not true that books for kids are always just for entertainment, some of them are a lot of fun to read and sometimes that's what I need. Roald Dahl is a good author to go to when you want to read a fun book that reminds you what it's like to be ten, and every once in a while that's exactly what I'm looking for.
5. I try not to underestimate kids or the books that they read. While it is true that I liked some embarrassing books as a kid (the Mary-Kate and Ashley mystery books first come to mind) I also liked a lot of things that I'm sure adults assumed would go right over my head (like the dark humour and literary references in A Series of Unfortunate Events.) I'm sure there are people who will hear a child praise a book and patronize them, assuming that this book is much too silly for anyone over the age of twelve. You can even see this in some children's books that are condescending and talk down to the reader (another pet peeve of mine.) Believing that all children's books are subpar means believing that children are essentially silly and waste their time on less than satisfactory literature. Some kid's books are popular for a reason: they're good.
6. Just because a book is written for a younger audience doesn't mean it doesn't touch on important issues. This makes me think of a quote from Madeleine L'Engle, writer of A Wrinkle in Time: “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” Dr. Seuss's books could be written off as simply being wacky rhyming books for kids, but in reality they are about a lot more than that (x). Just because the writing isn't necessarily challenging doesn't mean that it doesn't touch on some challenging issues. Remember, these books were written by adults.
7. I try to be open minded about what I read. If someone recommends me a book that they love, I'm going to read it whether it's for children, teens or adults. If I was less open minded about reading I would have missed out on a lot of amazing books.
8. I know that writers of junior fiction can be just as talented as writers for adults. A lot of people seem to think that junior fiction has no literary merit, or even that writers of children's books do so because they couldn't write for adults. Sort of like 'those who can't teach, teach gym,' but instead 'those who can't write, write for children.' This is, of course, completely untrue. Some very talented writers of junior fiction include Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, L.M. Montgomery, Lois Lowry, E.L. Konigsburg, Madeleine L'Engle, Lewis Carroll, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling and Frances Hodgson Burnett. In fact, some of these writers also write for adults.
9. Sometimes I like to escape from the adult world. Let's be honest: sometimes it's nice to forget about the lows of adult life and read books about adventure from the eyes of a wide eyed child protagonist.
10. Because a good book is a good book. Who cares which section of the library it's in? You see books that are torn between the YA and the Adult Fiction section, and wherever you find The Book Thief, it's still going to be amazing.

I think people should read whatever they want, no matter what the intended age group is. While I think that there are a lot of good reasons to read junior fiction, that's all beside the point. Whether you're reading The Hobbit or a Mary-Kate and Ashley mystery novel, that's your choice and no one should judge you for reading whatever it is that you're reading. Personally, I hope that I never stop loving something just because it's not intended for my age group: what would life be like without Pixar movies, children's books, Avatar: The Last Airbender and ring pops?

Feel through to respond with your comments on children's literature and the adults who read it.