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.
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.
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.
Yesterday I read Ibi Zoboi’s newest book (S)kin that came out about a week ago. She writes the story in verse and specifically as readers get to know Genevieve and Marisol, Zoboi works her magic with the format in an ingenious way. It got me thinking about how much I adore the verse novel format when it’s done right. It puts the emotion front and center because it does not rely on words alone to tell the story.
I remember when Ellen Hopkins broke onto the scene with Crank, but the verse novel that (S)kin is most similar to is Identical by Hopkins: two perspectives of the twin teen girls and as the story switches between each of them, their thoughts or words align along the center of the page. It was gold then and it’s gold now to use visual poetry to convey secondary or tertiary layers of meaning.
Another element of verse novels is what I mentioned earlier: emotion. In Three Things I Know Are True by Betty Culley, Starfish by Lisa Fipps, and Louder Than Hunger by Jon Schu, the characters are going through some stuff. And that’s an oversimplification: Liv’s brother shot himself in the head with a gun at a friend’s house but survived though with significant medical issues; Ellie’s self esteem is wrecked by her mother’s insistence on Ellie getting thin; and Jake (based on Schu’s own experiences) suffers the loss of his grandmother which catapults him into an eating disorder so disruptive that it requires in-patient treatment. In all three of these examples, readers empathize intimately with the character’s because there’s a thin barrier between the character and reader when there are fewer words to hide behind. Oftentimes, it’s the lack of words on a page that sucker punches the reader when it’s only one or two in a sea of blank space.
This creative form is a win. I gravitate toward verse novels in the way that teens do too. For pure emotion. It’s said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but it’s also true of a verse novel that does more with less.
Yesterday I spent the first morning of winter break donating platelets, which if you’d done it, means about 2 1/2 hours sitting with both arms immobile. I can’t read a book and while I could potentially listen to an audiobook, I’d just be staring around the room, so I took the opportunity to watch a movie since they provide you with this entertainment. I was prepared to watch a movie I’d been wanting to watch on one streaming service but it wasn’t working so I was on another and saw The Martian available. I had been surprised by my love for the book. I had borrowed it digitally a few years back and was prepared to skim read the science fiction story because it’s not usually my jam. But I was sucked in and ignored other responsibilities one summer day to finish it because I loved Mark Watney’s voice. Done. I’ll watch the movie adaptation.
I’m usually suspicious of movie adaptations but have followed Angie Thomas’ tweet from years ago when the adaptation of her book was coming out and she was inundated with messages about it. She likened a book versus the movie as fraternal twins: they share the same DNA however they are different entities. As the mom of fraternal twins and a bookworm rather than a movie buff, it spoke to me on multiple levels.
Eventually I end up watching most movies that have been adapted but I don’t want a lot of movies in general (I prefer documentaries). And just like the book, I was wowed by the movie. Damon is a fantastic actor and the scenes, dark humor, and immediacy of his situation were wonderfully evocative in the movie.
There have been a few others that I’ve enjoyed similarly: Kristen Stewart’s awkwardness as Melinda in Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson matched. The adorableness of the music and characters in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han spoke to me (more) in the movie version than the books. Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy was brought to life with all the confidence of Dumplin herself, Danielle Macdonald.
Last week I recommended the entertaining first book in The Misfits series The Royal Conundrum written by Lisa Yee and illustrated by Dan Santat to a girl who didn’t really know what she was looking for. I told her that a fun adventure would await and if it sounded good, then dive in.
She returned today saying she wanted something else. I’m not even sure she cracked it open. As a mood reader myself, I assumed that the good time romp that The Royal Conundrum offered her last week when we talked wasn’t what she was looking for now. We chatted for a few minutes. I showed her a new display of books and talked about a few based on format and topic and told her to roam and see what stuck out.
Ten minutes later she came up to the desk with Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett that I had talked about from our display and the Manga Classic edition of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare that was in a wildly different location than the other. Both a decidedly different mood than the original. We chatted during checkout and she grabbed a few bookmarks content with her choices.
I want to celebrate her self discovery. Her agency in choosing what is right for her at the moment. It wasn’t an assignment. It wasn’t forced. She just wanted to read a good book and meandered through the library without me trailing behind. We need to give kids the space to make their decisions with confidence… or maybe even sheer randomness. Either way, I’m glad she feels at home in the library to return and borrow as often as she needs.
Readers Be Advised 