It’s been a good reading year for me. A couple of times I was on a run of seven or eight brilliant books in a row and I would start to wonder if there was a book, anywhere, that I would not love. Here are my Top 5 Children’s, Teen and Adult books that I read in 2012, the National Year of Reading. They are in no particular order. Most are not 2012 releases. Some are re-reads, some older, some new.
There are not enough Australian books, something I hope to remedy in 2013 starting with Michael Gerard Bauer’s fave YA booklist and the First Tuesday Book Club Top 50 Australian books.
All of the books below come highly recommended for adults as well as kids / teens.
Top 5 Children’s / Middle-Grade
The Invention of Hugo Cabret – Brian Selznick
Hatchet – Gary Paulsen
Joey Pigza Loses Control – Jack Gantos
Once series – Morris Gleitzman
Okay For Now – Gary D. Schmidt
Top 5 Teen / Young Adult
The Knife of Never Letting Go – Patrick Ness
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time – Mark Haddon
The Fault in Our Stars – John Green
Town – James Roy
Don’t Call Me Ishmael – Michael Gerard Bauer
Top 5 Adult / Classics
Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind – Shunryu Suzuki
The Old Man & the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
White Fang – Jack London
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Road – Cormac McCarthy