Hi, everyone! I’m on a “Best Ever Young Adult Book” crusade.
I don’t know if anyone here frequents Pred and Edit or Critters, but “Preditors and Editors” and the writers workshop group, “Critters”, have combined resources for a “Best Ever” poll. The poll has subcategories for virtually every kind of book, story and poem ever written. That includes both Young Adult and Children’s books, stories, poems, poets and authors. The poll has been open for submissions since sometime in January. Any one can nominate a title or an author in any category. According to the site, the poll never closes—they hope to create a resource for potential readers for the future, actually a kind of shopping list for parents and children.
It’s not going well.
The problem is that very few people know about this poll or alternatively people are glancing at the interim results but no one is taking the time to vote for their favorites. I can think of any number of YA books and authors alone that deserve nomination at least. Here’s a few of my favorite authors from either my teen or childhood years: Walter Farley, Madeline L'Engle, Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, Jane Louise Curry, Diana Wynne Jones, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, Lloyd Alexander, and of course Grimm, Lang, and Anderson when it comes to fairy tales. (Some of these have been entered in the poll already) With all due respect, I’m not a fan of Rowling, but I was surprised to not find her name.
In spite of Rowling’s absence and probably the absence of every member of YAAYNHO, right now the list is slanted toward books written in the last decade or so. There’s lots of votes for Stephenie Meyer for instance. May I suggest that you visit the site, and contribute your favorites? Perhaps, you could also tell friends, parents and fellow authors about the poll as well. How can there be only 13 favorite YA books and only 11 favorite Children’s books on these lists? Seven YA authors? Six Children’s authors? The poll has been open for weeks.
The website is:
http://critters.org/bestpoll/ Links to various categories are listed in the table at the bottom of the page.
Below is a rather crowded list of the Young Adult and Children’s Entries to date. Sorry for the mess! I’m trying to keep the blog entry from running to pages and pages.
p.s. There's lots of other categories too.
Sherry Thompson, author of Seabird ( http://bit.ly/bKBQ7x ) and Earthbow ( http://bit.ly/b9vDW1 )
Young Adult:
Book---
His Dark Materials Philip Pullman
The Book Thief Markus Zusak
Leviathan Scott Westerfeld
Lioness Rampant Tamora Pierce
Howl's Moving Castle Diana Wynne Jones
The Old Kingdom Series Garth Nix
Beauty Robin McKinley
The Neverending Story Michael Ende
Twilight Stephenie Meyer
A Series of Unfortunate Events Lemony Snicket
The Chronicles of Prydain Lloyd Alexander
The Last Unicorn Peter S. Beagle
The Westmark Trilogy Lloyd Alexander
Short Story--- (no entries)
Poem--- (no entries)
Poet--- (no entries)
Author---
Diana Wynne Jones
Garth Nix
Melina Marchetta
Jane Yolen
Madeline L'Engle
L. M. Montgomery
Andrew Clements
Childrens:
Book---
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH Robert C. O'Brien
Marianne Dreams Catherine Storr
arabatt clive barker
Spellhorn Berlie Doherty
The Silver Brumby Elyne Mitchell
A Friend is Someone Who Likes You Joan Walsh Anglund
The Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis
Anne of Green Gables L.M. Montgomery
My Side of the Mountain Jean Craighead George
Shadow Castle Marian Cockrell
Short Story---
Unicorns on Octavion O'Neil De Noux
Poem--- (no entries)
Poet---
Walter de la Mare
Lewis Carroll
Shel Silverstein
Author---
Dr. Suess
Neil Gaiman
Roald Dahl
J.M. Barrie
Brian Jacques
Andrew Clements
