Let’s make this a thing!

Last year I shared two lists: an adult and a YA/middle grade top 10 based on the books published in that calendar year. This year, absent from my list will be any fiction titles since I’m finishing up my term on YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults blogging team. Our final list will be available soon and in the meantime you can see the titles we’ve all blogged about throughout the year.

Now onto my top 15 published today, December 15th for 2019.

• Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell: The color palette and storyline is richly detailed with the internal romantic lives of teenagers, especially highlighting unrequited and abusive relationships in a powerful story.
• Pilu of the Woods by Mai K. Nguyen: A family-focused middle grade graphic novel with a vividly earthy color palette and a magical understanding of our natural world that has a message.
• White Bird by R.J. Palacio: The historical graphic novel wrapped in a contemporary story that shows the power of technology and the need for youth to talk to their older relatives to reveal the secret stories that might never get told.
• Maker Comics: Bake like a Pro! by Falynn Koch: I love baking, so this is my absolutely favorite maker comic to date. It’s so practical and useful wrapped in the goofy story of wizards honing their skills.
• Bloom by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau: The same use of a smart color palette like Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, this romantic GLBTQ story in a bakery clearly has me gah-gah.
• Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks: An endearing slow burning romance at a pumpkin patch where what you wish for isn’t always what you really need. The adventures were a humorous addition to a good ol’ fashioned romance in the fall. The setting is it’s own lovely character.
• Kiss #8 by Colleen A.F. Venable and Ellen T. Crenshaw: Ah, what more can be said about a girl figuring out relationships while the readers follow along.
• Hephaistos: God of Fire by George O’Connor: I’m all about this graphic novel series that keeps mythology alive for us all.

A picture book

• Liberty Arrives!: How America’s Grandest Statue Found Her Home by Robert Byrd: I read it and then immediately booked a trip to the Statue of Liberty with my family. Yes, we were one of the lucky 400 per day to head up to her crown on a chilly October morning. So you should read the book and take the trip too.

And those fabulously fascinating nonfiction titles (again, in no particular order):

• The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets by Sarah Miller: It’s a shocking look at five babies born in 1934 that shouldn’t have survived but did, then were ripped from their parents and raised as an amusement park attraction whose visits per year rivaled Niagara Falls.
• Notes from a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi with Joshua David Stein: A truly spectacular behind the scenes look at Onwuachi’s rise to popular chef that mixes the personal and the professional (and includes recipes!)
• Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? by Caitlin Doughty: We all know I’m obsessed with Doughty and this one didn’t disappoint by sharing funny, gross, and impossibly weird questions posed by kids and Doughty’s straightforward and quirky answers that are truthful and entertaining.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Making of America by Teri Kanefield: Her series always entertains and informs about those that built America. Kanefield never shies away from details that are less than stellar about these individuals and does the same with FDR.
• Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson: I mean, Anderson powerful words in prose format? Yes, please. The story is meant to be uncomfortable but also powerful and uplifting. A true battlecry for a new era.
• Rising Water: The Story of the Thai Cave Rescue by Marc Aronson: Whenever I’m talking about this book to teens, I’m always sharing how I knew what the outcome was and I was still sweating whether they were going to make it out alive! That is how capable Aronson is as a writer in manipulating our emotions.