Two Awesome Lists

Wow!  If you are looking for something to read, check out these two lists.  The first one is the Top 100 Children's Novels, a list put together by a woman named Betsy Bird.  I think she polled people who follow her blog at School Library Journal.  Even if you are not interested in reading children's books, you have to check out this list to see and appreciate all the work she has gone to to compile this list.  Not only does she have a short summary of each book, but also includes quotes from readers who particularly love each book, videos relating to the books, and (my favorite part of the list) as many images of covers of different editions of each book that she could find.  She is releasing her list a few books at a time, and for the last week or so, I have been eagerly checking out this blog each day to find the new posts.  For the books I have already read on this list, I am feeling nostalgic to re-read them and as for the books I have not read, almost every entry makes me feel like I have missed out on a great treasure, a situation that I must rectify (soon).

If you are a lover of dystopian fiction, especially in the YA category, the other list you must see is Half a Century of English-Language Young Adult Dystopias at a blog called Redecorating Middle-Earth in Early Lovecraft.  The blogger (Amy H. Sturgis) breaks down by decade an extremely comprehensive list of dystopian novels.  I am slowly learning, but I must admit that I was ignorant at the number of books that exist in this genre.  In fact, even though I have always liked books with a creepy/futuristic feel, I didn't realize until recently that this really was considered a genre unto itself.

Thanks to Jen Robinson whose blog led me to both these lists.  I now have so many books in my mental "to-read" pile that I think I will never get through them all.

Which is bliss.