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.
Kicking off a week of my top 10 with categories including adult titles, middle grade and YA, manga and manhwa, picture books, and graphic novels, comics, and manga for teens.
The titles ranged from nonfiction including memoir to investigative nonfiction to emotional essays about kitchen objects, comics featuring murder (I think I have a type), and fiction the features witches that continues to remind me of my love of learning that I lean toward nonfiction in general.
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.
A friend forwarded an email a few weeks back to make sure I knew that Sy Montgomery would be somewhat close by. There is a bookstore outside of my general area that has a second location the next state over that’s a scenic drive, but not too far. She knew I would travel for turtles.
For readers for youth, most will know the name Sy Montgomery. She’s written over 80 books about animals and those adventures have taken her all over the world. She’s written picture books, middle grade, and adult books about animals from octopuses to hummingbirds, turtles to tarantulas. I’m a big fan. The collaboration for her latest included illustrator Matt Patterson who would also be at the event as they promoted The True and Lucky Life of a Turtle featuring the real life adventure and misadventure of Fire Chief. But I also wanted the change to hear from Montgomery herself, plus get a bunch of books signed for my outdoorsy niece and nephews and one for myself.
If you haven’t read one of Montgomery’s books, you must. She provides depth, insight, and humor in and around the amazingness of animals. My favorites include: How to Be A Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals and What the Chicken Knows.
And the animal adjacent biography of Temple Grandin.
The drive to Vermont from my city on the eastern edge of New York was magical as the leaves have already begun to change, and I even had a little extra time to stop at a few cemeteries (I am a taphophile after all). What a lovely afternoon to spend among author and illustrators and books learning about animals and from each other.
It’s not just the unofficial end to summer, but a day that is set aside to recognize the jobs that make the world go round so I thought I’d share a few favorites from over the years.
Terkel’s comprehensive interviews of what people do and how they think about their jobs in Working.
Montgomery highlights the life and work of Temple Grandin, an autistic woman (before the term existed) who revolutionized slaughterhouses in Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loves Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World.
Ottaviani and Wicks paired up to focus on three women scientists working with Primates: Goodall, Fossey, and Galdikas in Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas.
The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives is Theresa Brown’s memoir as a nurse that I had the pleasure of Zooming with during the pandemic along with an Introduction to Medical Sciences class I collaborated with the teacher on to read the book and talk about nursing to high school students.
Melissa Sweet pays homage to writer E.B. White in Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White.
A riveting story of a woman who built a business as a cleaner called in by police, fire, and families after traumatic occurrences in The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster written by Krasnostein.
Recipes and business acumen are on display in the teen adaptation of Onwuachi’s Notes From a Young Black Chef.
Want a nice overview of labor? Look no further than Shift Happens: The History of Labor in the United States by Mann.
And my love of cemeteries also means I love Catilin Doughty, the mortician talking about her work in the crematory and beyond in Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory.
I reference often my love of books about animals. I have favorite authors like Sy Montgomery that bring the magic of animals with the science. But there are also plenty of other titles that highlight a connection or relationship with an animal that changed a person’s perspective or others that provide an overarching appreciation for animals’ contributions to the world. I wanted to share a few recent reads that highlight these exact sentiments from a nonfiction picture book about sea turtles to a hare that shifted Dalton’s worldview.
A surprising read was Hall’s Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World. If you remember my post about our public library’s summer reading kickoff, I held a big snake around my shoulders. This was a first because I have a reasonable/unreasonable fear of them and wanted to find a way to start recognizing the beauty of the animal in a safe environment. Hall provided science and story in equal measure.
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.
Within the last decade, I have discovered a new hobby: cemetery walking which makes me a taphophile. This has taken me to many spots (though not yet international travel for it) around the area and in other states– it might be a quick stroll or it might be an early morning intensive. I’ve completed a cemetery crawl. I read books about them. And this past week, I finished a four week course on cemetery symbolism. Excitingly, I had signed up for the course before realizing that the book Grave from the series Object Lessons was written by the same person that would be running it. Needless to say, I knew I was going to nerd out. And nerd out I did.
And one cemetery that came up often in the discussions was Pere-Lachaise. It’s basically the mecca of cemeteries so imagine my excitement when I received a copy of the book The Secret Life of a Cemetery: The Wild Nature and Enchanting Lore of Pere-Lachaise by Benoit Gallot. This insightful mix of biography of Gallot’s residence inside Pere-Lachaise as an administrator (where he both works and raises his family on premises), cemetery history, and homage to the ecosystem that exists inside this one, and others, if you choose to see it. What started with a picture of a kit fox walking the grounds on his social media became the book about more than just the fox.
It’s a call to taphophiles like me to book travel to Paris and spend all my time walking the 110 acres.
Representation matters. And in the case of books for teens in which the teen has a rare illness, it stands as a mirror or window for a reader. Now more than ever, books are being published featuring characters with autism, anxiety, and depression, all more common especially in 2025, but what about rarer illnesses such as Crouzon syndrome or Ehlers Danlos Syndrome or spinal muscular atrophy? I’m happy to report that there are stories, and fabulously written stories at that, about rare illnesses.
I got to thinking about this yesterday afternoon having finished the book I Am The Cage by Allison Sweet Grant that was published last week. In it, nineteen year old Elisabeth is slowly revealed to have had intense medical trauma growing up as a result of leg length discrepancy. And then I remembered other books that I’ve read and enjoyed sharing with teens with similar rare illnesses.
Four additional fictional stories include the graphic novel Stars In Their Eyes by Jessica Walton and Aska featuring Maisie who is an amputee. Breathe and Count Back From Ten by Natalia Sylvester whose main character Veronica has hip dysplasia. The fifth book in the Teen Titans graphic novels called Starfire includes Kori who has Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. And in Jawbreaker by Christina Wyman, Max struggles with the pain and possible surgery for her Class II malocclusion.
Then there are the autobiographies. As a lover of this category and whose high school library features a massive collection of amazing ones, I am always on the lookout for addition spectacular stories. And the first one, Shane Burcaw’s Laughing At My Nightmare holds a special place for me as I was able to booktalk his second book Strangers Assume My Girlfriend Is My Nurse at a Macmillan breakfast many years ago and then met both Shane and (then girlfriend, now wife) Hannah at a dinner during that conference. Burcaw has spinal muscular atrophy. And if you’d like a fictional YA title with a character who also has it, I highly recommend Chaz Hayden’s The First Thing About You.
One I often recommend is Ariel Henley’s A Face For Picasso, who spent her teen years under the knife (along with her twin sister who also has it) to provide symmetry to her face having been born with Crouzon syndrome and realizing what she needed versus what she wanted. Another that I share regularly and quote from regularly is Zion Clark’s (along with James S. Hirsch) Work With What You Got, a sports autobiography which rounds out his life, and fame, thus far after being born with caudal regression syndrome.
Of course there are more, however these nine are solid stories that I hope you pick up if you haven’t already.
Today begins winter break which generally means I will try to cram as much reading as I can into each 24-hour day while tidying up around the house, visiting friends, and driving my boys to their job and hangouts with friends. It also means bottomless cups of tea thanks to my Breville teamaker.
I have a few professional titles to read including Jarred Amato’s Just Read It: Unlocking the Magic of Independent Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms and Ashley Hawkins, Emily Ratica, Julie Stivers, Sybil “Mouna” Toure, and Sara Smith’s Manga Goes to School: Cultivating Engagement and Inclusion in K-12 Settings.
And plenty of YA and middle grade titles especially that have started piling up on my Netgalley shelf as I prepare for a new set of presentations with my amazing colleague and presenter, Stacey.
Where will you find me? At home bouncing between the couch with a book or tablet or bouncing around the house with my Shokz headphones listening to an audiobook getting chores done.
Readers Be Advised 