what to read in 2012

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The best books of 2011 of course!  It's a great time of year to place hold requests, add things to to-read lists, and generally revel in the book awards spectacular.  Of course, BCCB Blue Ribbons and Newbery/Caldcott/Printz/CorettaScottKing/Notables/etc. aren't out yet, but some of the big lists are already available:

Horn Book Fanfare

SLJ's Best Books of 2011

So far, from the above two lists, I've added these novels to my to-read list: Chime by Billingsley (who is an accomplished author), Dead End in Norvelt (I love Jack Gantos' work!), and new sci-fi Glow by Ryan.  I'm also very excited to see picture books Heart and Soul, Spirals in Nature, and Press Here.

SLJ's list includes a section I'll be perusing heavily for my own reading, the Best Adult Books 4 Teens, and of these I'm especially interested in:

Ready Player One (sounds surreal),
The Language of Flowers (fiction about foster children),
The Magician King (fantasy),
The Night Circus (getting attention on other adult lists),
Swamplandia! (set in FL, humor),
and Robopocalypse (mostly for B).


Amazon's best and bestseller lists which I like to peruse for comparative purposes.  Did the literature and youth services experts converge upon the same things as the customer stats from Amazon?  Always fun to speculate why or why not, of course.

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