Colby Sharp and Donalyn Miller, from the Nerdy Book Club blog, sum up a fantastic year of children's and young adult literature. Enjoy this list of outstanding 2013 books that your children (and you) will love to read.
PICTURE BOOKS
1. Battle Bunny by Jon Scieszka and Mac Barnett, illustrated by Matthew Myers
2. Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown
3. Journey by Aaron Becker
4. Lifetime: The Amazing Numbers in Animals’ Lives by Lola M. Schaefer, illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal
5. The Story of Fish & Snail by Deborah Freedman
MIDDLE-GRADE FICTION
6. The Real Boy by Anne Ursu
7. Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
8. Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin by Liesl Shurtliff
9. Doll Bones by Holly Black
10. The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt
11. The Center of Everything by Linda Urban
YOUNG ADULT FICTION
12. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
13. Far Far Away by Tom McNeal
14. Scowler by Daniel Kraus
15. Winger by Andrew Smith
NONFICTION
16. The Animal Book: A Collection of the Fastest, Fiercest, Toughest, Cleverest, Shyest — and Most Surprising — Animals on Earth by Steve Jenkins
17. Courage Has No Color, The True Story of the Triple Nickles: America's First Black Paratroopers by Tanya Lee Stone
GRAPHIC NOVELS
18. Squish 5: Game On! by Jennifer L. and Matt Holm
19. Star Wars: Jedi Academy by Jeffrey Brown
20. Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Donner Dinner Party by Nathan Hale
Donalyn Miller is a teacher in Fort Worth, Texas. She is the author of The Book Whisperer (Jossey-Bass, 2009) and Reading in the Wild (Jossey-Bass, 2013). Donalyn co-hosts the monthly Twitter chat #titletalk (with Nerdy co-founder Colby Sharp) and facilitates the Twitter reading initiative #bookaday. You can find her on Twitter and her website, or under a pile of books somewhere —happily reading.
Colby Sharp is a third-grade teacher in Parma, Mich. He blogs at Sharpread and helps out at Nerdy Book Club.