And we’ve arrived at Friday, five days worth of top 10 lists from reading this year. To say that I’m a reader is an understatement. It’s a part of me in every way from my profession to my personality.
Books for teens are my bread and butter being a high school librarian, so it is hard to arrive at a top ten. Top twenty or thirty would be better. You’ll see some heavy hitters- authors like Candace Fleming, Gail Jarrow, Marissa Meyer, Kate Messner. I’ve got authors like Suzanne Collins riding a new wave of fans of the Hunger Games with the emotional wreck that is Sunrise on the Reaping. There are debut authors like Vinson writing about the skate rink (shoutout to Midstate where I spend many Saturday mornings and several birthdays and slow skating to Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You hand-in-hand with a crush). The fantasy world that Rundell built in the sequel which was exquisite and creative. And last, a thinker of a book, the dark and tragic but strong and powerful Lady or the Tiger by Herrman.
Were there favorites of yours on any of the lists? Others that you’d want to add? I’ll be writing throughout 2026 so if there’s any focus that would be beneficial, leave a comment.
We’re close to the end! Today’s top 10 are graphic novels and comics that were my favorites of the year, graphic novels that taught me, entertained me, made me feel something, and inspired me (to cosplay that is!) I always say one of the indicators for me is whether I’d want the art on my wall and that’s the case with any of these.
It’s not a secret that graphic novels are here to stay and if these are any indication of their amazingness, they’ll be around forever. Hats off to the illustrators or the creators that do double duty as author AND illustrator.
What do you look for in great graphic novels and comics?
My top 10 lists each year always capture the books published in that year, however manga and manhwa are notoriously difficult to capture year by year in part because the American release of a title isn’t synchronous with the Japanese publication. And because a series can go on for quite some time, if the series is discovered after a publication date many years ago, I can obsessively read through the series without waiting for the next volume. The opposite it also true, a first volume released in 2025 where the wait may be long to see the next volume.
So this list is the only list where the specific volume I’m on may not have been published in 2025, but these were my favorites read this year. However, Maid to Skate should be on your to-be-read list and it comes out… TODAY! I read an advanced copy thanks to Netgalley which is why I am able to put it on the list and celebrate its delightfulness.
As with my adult titles from yesterday, I like dark stuff and The Strange House is no different. I also was into apocalyptic stories which is why The Color of the End and Touring After the Apocalypse make appearances. I can juxtapose that with the friendly story of Frieren and friends, the chill girls night and winter camping in Laid Back Camp and the humor of a former yakuza turned househusband.
Needless to say, I’ll endlessly fill my days with manga and manhwa new and old any day of the week.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s reveal of the top 10 picture books.
The day after Thanksgiving makes me want to go back– to kitchen utensils, food memory, and reading Bee Wilson’s newest book, The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss, and Kitchen Objects.
When it was released on November 4th, I picked it up that day from the indie bookstore I had preordered it from. I read the first story and had that conflicted feeling I always do with amazing books– I wanted to rip through it and read it in one sitting to gobble it up like a succulent turkey on the Thanksgiving table, but I also wanted to savor it like the apple pie for dessert knowing the meal is at its end with a cup of tea. I decided on the later, reading about a story a day to finish it on my birthday. The book is a collection of stories that begin and end with Wilson’s own object: a heart-shaped tin that she had baked her wedding cake in but felt different now that her divorce was final. It made her think about her own attachment to kitchen objects and made her explore how others feel about their own too. What happens between the pages is a meet-and-greet with others who remember vivid feelings or feel close to relatives in their kitchens. One that sticks out is a mug in Barry’s kitchen:
“Long after he discarded the past bowl, Barry says that there are still certain objects that bring back periods of his life in a way that nothing else could. They are not museum pieces. Over and above admiring, they are for using, and when he uses them his memories come alive again, he says… He could not bear to lose this mug because it ‘radiates’ with such memorable experiences. When the mug is not in use, Barry says it is as if the memories of that Mexican trip become ‘dehydrated,’ like a dried flower. But when he pours coffee in it and holds the mug in his hang, ‘it blooms again.'”
The vivid description of a dehydrated flower that blooms again with use packs a punch. The others stories are just as unique and emotional. It’s similar to an experience several days ago when I made golabki, a dish that my grandmother would make on occasions like my birthday because it was my favorite and my mother makes a version for Christmas Eve. I’d attempted it once or twice but always had to pivot at the last minute turning it into lazy golabki but never quite recreating the taste which I’m convinced is more about others preparing it for me. But this time, I got super close to that taste, the feeling, the love and at the same time I usually enjoy it, my birthday.
As the holidays creep closer starting with Thanksgiving and ending with Christmas celebrations, give yourself a treat. Buy yourself a copy of Wilson’s book, savor a story or two a day, and use it as an exercise to remember and create your own story as Wilson’s did with all of the people she met and interviewed for this book. We all have a story to contribute to a topic like kitchen utensils and food memory just like a conversation I had with my sister-in-law’s father after our meal describing to me the three types of plates we were using for Thanksgiving at her house that included a set from her great grandmother, grandmother, and mother. I thought that the seed of that story would fit perfectly into Wilson’s book and that I might have to reread it.
It’s National Book Lovers Day. What are you doing today?
So far I’ve visited my indie bookstore to buy a favorite picture book (Big Enough by Regina Linke), stopped at my local public library to pick up books for my son and me (he had a hold list of about twenty-five manga titles that he’s taking camping next week), and read (Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World by Stephen S. Hall).
I’ll also squeeze in time to stare at my bookshelves.
You know what the trouble is with stunning books like Kate Messner’s The Trouble With Heroes that dropped yesterday?
It makes people like me stay up past my bedtime to finish it.
It’s been a few years since I decided to forgo sleep on a school night so that I could finish a book, but I do remember those books that compelled me to do so in years past: The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner, The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee, Murder Among Friends by Candace Fleming.
But back to Kate Messner’s mesmerizing middle grade with a little story about the full-circle moment of completing it ahead of the New York State Library Association’s School Librarians Conference happening in Rochester this week. Because last year at about this time, the conference was in Lake Placid and Kate Messner was the keynote closing lunchtime speaker on Saturday. Regaling the audience with stories about her curious discoveries that become series like the History Smashers, she talked about the project she launched with a stellar cast of authors– a series of chapters books called The Kids in Mrs. Z.’s class, and she shared mockups of the cover of the yet-to-be-released The Trouble with Heroes; she asked the librarians which cover we liked best. When I saw the advanced copy available on Netgalley, I quickly requested it, but I know myself. I know that when I’m really excited about a book, I (oppositely) avoid it as long as possible because then when it’s read, I can’t go back and read it for the first time. Ever. Again.
This is the case with The Trouble with Heroes. I had read a few pages about a week ago. I had already made notes to myself and highlighted moving quotes. And I told myself. I have to prolong it until I realized the publication date was April 29th and it has had so much buzz that I thought, I’m going to dive in. And that’s just what I did. How easy was it to get lost in Finn’s story– a seventh grader who makes a bad decision, but instead of a strict punishment, the adults around him know that he needs nature healing after the death of his father– a man who was forever memorialized as a hero on September 11th saving a woman. A man who was haunted by the demons of that day. Who then was a paramedic in the city for years including the recent pandemic. What a tough time to be in healthcare. Yet he always had the Adirondacks.
Astute readers know that Messner herself is a 46er, a person who has summited all 46 High Peaks of the Adirondack Mountains. It would be assumed, she wanted to write a bit of a love letter to this journey that’s physical as well as spiritual for many who set that goal.
Now Finn will be hiking them, many of them with a drooling, hairy sidekick, Seymour the dog pictured on the cover, and a cast of mentors who summit with him. I can wax poetic about the storytelling, the humor, the character development, the setting, the message but I will not because I will tell you: read it yourself. Everyone deserves an experience like reading Messner’s stunning story, both kid and adult. I will however share a favorite page of verse (from the advanced copy) that’s another “trouble” with The Trouble with Heroes— and that’s that it’s too poetic for its own good:
Too Much Time to Think
The trouble with long hikes
is that your brain has to come with you
and on the way back when you’re trudging
the last muddy miles,
it has plenty of time to think about stuff
like metaphors.
That May after Mom and I moved back,
she and Gram had figured out
how to handle pickup orders from the shop.
I was making deliveries on my bike
and riding around in the sunshine was pretty okay.
I’d just gotten home when the phone rang.
You know the call I’m talking about.
I’m not going through it again.
Except to say it felt like that spot
in the brook where the rocks fell away.
Like I was falling
and falling,
heart sinking, stomach twisting
never saw it coming.
I should have.
But I didn’t.
Later today I’ll be stopping by my local indie bookstore to purchase two copies. One to keep and one to give to a kid I know should read it. I’ll also be adding several copies to the shelves of the school library I work at. Do yourself a favor. Support Messner by doing the same. Your kids will be better for it. And we want Messner to keep writing.
Love it or hate it, we’re a visual culture. And we do judge books by their covers! I can’t help but stare at evocative book covers. Do you have a favorite? Here are a few of mine:
Dunlap’s debut The Resurrectionist was a recent recommended read and I couldn’t have been more in love with the morbid cover.
When I’m doing readers advisory with my high schoolers, I lead with the breathtaking beauty of this cover of Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson (the recent winner of the Margaret A. Edwards award at the Youth Media Awards).
I spent too much time being eviscerated by Ashley Hope Perez’s Out of Darkness and telling everyone I knew to read it before I bought it so I could own it and stare at a cover that in it’s simplicity summarizes the complexity of human existence and sends shivers down my spine every time I think about Naomi.
Were my eyes playing tricks on me? I didn’t really see this cover until days after I finished it and was staring at it again. Genius connection to the story in Jason Reynolds’ Long Way Down.
Speaking of second takes– both Schwartz’s first book Anatomy: A Love Story and her second Immortality: A Love Story have that creative illusion that highlights the heart and mind of the duology’s intelligent and daring heroine Hazel.
Finally, the caboose to this best-of train are books written for adults. A treat and indulgence for a high school librarian like myself. It’s evident that I lean heavily into nonfiction but have been known to get sucked into a vivid fiction too. Oh, and comics.
What would October 31st be without a few book recs to get us all in the Halloween spirit?
Sheets by Thummler: Because Wendell the ghost haunting Marjorie’s family laundromat is sentimental and sweet.
Gyo by Ito: Because anything Ito creates is the thing of nightmares and phobias.
The Girl from the Other Side by Nagabe: Because Teacher is a creature that doesn’t eat or sleep with a deer-like skull for a head who is smitten with Shiva, a little girl he wants to protect is as innocent as it is dark woven perfectly in this manga.
Eternally Yours edited by Caldwell: Because you want creepy in bite-sized short stories.
Fangs by Anderson: Because a werewolf and a vampire fall in love.
The Ghosts of Rose Hill by Romero: Because a verse novel about a ghost haunting a cemetery that a human teen befriends is my kind of book.
Ghost Book by Lai: Because creative storytelling in middle grade graphic novels couldn’t have gotten better than this book about lives lived, lost, and found again.
The Weight of Blood by Jackson: Because what book can get you to read another classic book (Carrie by King) with both bringing the gore and thrill.
The Night Easters by Liu and Takeda: Because there is so much to take in visually in this graphic novel backed by so much emotional and family baggage.
Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Horvath and Otsmane-Elhaou: Because an Eisner winning comic series about an unassuming bear in a small town with a penchant for murder is psychologically riveting from the first page to the last page.
Book birthdays are as special as human birthdays, especially for book lovers who adore the authors that have put the book out into the world. Therefore, happy book birthday to The Bletchley Riddle, coauthored by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin whose individual works are as impactful as their first collaboration and must be celebrated.
The Bletchley Riddle is a middle grade historical fiction set in 1940 at Bletchley Park, home to the infamous codebreakers during World War II. In addition to incorporating ciphers into the text and providing an entrancing overall mystery amidst war, the book’s best feature are the vivid brother and sister duo. Who doesn’t love an alternating point of view? Intricately layered with historical facts because both are powerhouse researchers, Sheinkin wrote Jakob’s character and Sepetys wrote Lizzie’s character. How did it all blend together? Some of their secrets were revealed at an event at Northshire Bookstore in Saratoga Springs, NY last night as the last event for the Saratoga Book Festival; plus the hometown indie bookstore for Sheinkin. To have both authors, since Sepetys lives in Tennessee, was a real treat. Then to have the book in hand (if it was preordered, a spy pen was a bonus gift) and signed after an enchanting evening of their conversation and answering audience questions, made for a memorable book launch.
I’ve only teased a few elements of the book because it’s better to clear your calendar and spend a weekend with a cup of tea and Jakob and Lizzie. And if you want to put a goulash casserole in the oven for later, even better. I did this a few days after I read the advanced reader copy.
Collaborations are hard work, as they attest to, but readers will read the book and find it an effortless meshing of two talented authors who find history that we all need to remember more than we do; finding palatable ways to learn, question, and feel. I wonder… is another collaboration on the horizon?
Readers Be Advised 