In 2018, I exceeded my initial goal of 50 books and went on to read 100 (aka my secret goal). Many of these were Middle Grade (surprise!), with a scattering of rom-com YA and some non-fiction. I also read 50+ picture books… which I didn’t always count on Goodreads but which I’ll list here cause picture books are amazing.
Below are some of my favorites from the year, with their publishers’ descriptions and a little note about what I liked. You can see the complete list of my year in reading (sans some picture books) here.
Picture Books
King of the Sky by Nicola Davies, Laura Carlin (Illustrations)
In this tale of a young boy, an old man, and a dauntless pigeon, a lyrical text and extraordinary illustrations offer a gorgeous meditation on loneliness, belonging, and home.
A young Italian boy has moved to the Welsh hills with his family. He feels isolated and unhappy, a stranger in a strange land. It is only when he makes an unlikely friend, an old man who lets him fly one of his pigeons in a race, that he learns how he can belong. Nicola Davies s beautiful story an immigrant s tale with powerful resonance in our troubled times is illustrated by an artist who makes the world anew with every picture.
My Note: This made me happy-cry.
Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai, Kerascoët (Illustrator)
Nobel Peace Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author Malala Yousafzai’s first picture book, inspired by her own childhood.
Malala’s first picture book will inspire young readers everywhere to find the magic all around them.
As a child in Pakistan, Malala made a wish for a magic pencil. She would use it to make everyone happy, to erase the smell of garbage from her city, to sleep an extra hour in the morning. But as she grew older, Malala saw that there were more important things to wish for. She saw a world that needed fixing. And even if she never found a magic pencil, Malala realized that she could still work hard every day to make her wishes come true.
This beautifully illustrated volume tells Malala’s story for a younger audience and shows them the worldview that allowed Malala to hold on to hope even in the most difficult of times.
My Note: There are some other picture books and early readers about Malala, but I am rather fond of this one. It’s whimsical and enchanted in a way that makes her story accessible to younger kids, and the gold (copper?)-leaf illustrations are lovely.
Teacup by Rebecca Young, Matt Ottley (Illustrator)
A boy must leave his home and find another. He brings with him a teacup full of earth from the place where he grew up, and sets off to sea. Some days, the journey is peaceful, and the skies are cloudless and bright. Some days, storms threaten to overturn his boat. And some days, the smallest amount of hope grows into something glorious. At last, the boy finds land, but it doesn’t feel complete… until another traveler joins him, bearing the seed to build a new home.
My Note: Yeah I cried again.
The Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton
Princess Pinecone knows exactly what she wants for her birthday this year. A BIG horse. A STRONG horse. A horse fit for a WARRIOR PRINCESS! But when the day arrives, she doesn’t quite get the horse of her dreams…
From the artist behind the comic phenomenon Hark! A Vagrant, The Princess and the Pony is a laugh-out-loud story of brave warriors, big surprises, and falling in love with one unforgettable little pony.
My Note: This one is hilarious. Every time I read it with someone new, we can’t help laughing out loud.
The Day the Crayons Came Home by Drew Daywalt, Oliver Jeffers (Illustrations)
The companion to the #1 blockbuster bestseller, The Day the Crayons Quit!
I’m not sure what it is about this kid Duncan, but his crayons sure are a colorful bunch of characters! Having soothed the hurt feelings of one group who threatened to quit, Duncan now faces a whole new group of crayons asking to be rescued. From Maroon Crayon, who was lost beneath the sofa cushions and then broken in two after Dad sat on him; to poor Turquoise, whose head is now stuck to one of Duncan’s stinky socks after they both ended up in the dryer together; to Pea Green, who knows darn well that no kid likes peas and who ran away — each and every crayon has a woeful tale to tell and a plea to be brought home to the crayon box.
My Note: I enjoyed The Day the Crayons Quit, but this companion was even better in my opinion. The postcards used to communicate with Duncan had me snickering.
Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson, Sydney Smith (Illustrator)
In this wordless picture book, a little girl collects wildflowers while her distracted father pays her little attention. Each flower becomes a gift, and whether the gift is noticed or ignored, both giver and recipient are transformed by their encounter. “Written” by award-winning poet JonArno Lawson and brought to life by illustrator Sydney Smith, Sidewalk Flowers is an ode to the importance of small things, small people, and small gestures.
My Note: The quiet hope of this book made me… you guess it… cry again. I bought my own copy immediately and pull it out from time to time on rainy days.
This Moose Belongs to Me by Oliver Jeffers
Wilfred owned a moose. He hadn’t always owned a moose. The moose came to him a while ago and he knew, just KNEW, that it was meant to be his. He thought he would call him Marcel.
Most of the time Marcel is very obedient, abiding by the many rules of How to Be a Good Pet. But imagine Wilfred’s surprise when one dark day, while deep in the woods, someone else claims the moose as their own…
My Note: This. Book. Is. A. Riot. Another one that always gets a laugh when I share it.
The Crocodile Who Didn’t like Water by Gemma Merino
Meet a most unusual crocodile! Everybody knows that crocodiles love water, but this little crocodile is different — he doesn’t like it at all! He tries to his best to change, but when attempt at swimming causes a shiver then a sneeze — could it be that this little crocodile isn’t a crocodile at all? A hilarious and uplifting story about being yourself from a talented debut author-illustrator!
My Note: When I read this with some kids, they shriek-gasped when they got to the twist ending. It’s a delight!
I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen
The bear’s hat is gone, and he wants it back. Patiently and politely, he asks the animals he comes across, one by one, whether they have seen it. Each animal says no, some more elaborately than others. But just as the bear begins to despond, a deer comes by and asks a simple question that sparks the bear’s memory and renews his search with a vengeance. Told completely in dialogue, this delicious take on the classic repetitive tale plays out in sly illustrations laced with visual humor — and winks at the reader with a wry irreverence that will have kids of all ages thrilled to be in on the joke.
Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, Jon Klassen (Illustrator)
This looks like an ordinary box full of ordinary yarn.
But it turns out it isn’t.
My note: Delightful, colorful, and fun — with a classic fairytale feel and gorgeous illustrations.
Middle Grade
Where the Watermelons Grow by Cindy Baldwin
Twelve-year-old Della Kelly has lived her whole life in Maryville, North Carolina. She knows how to pick the softest butter beans and sweetest watermelons on her daddy’s farm. She knows ways to keep her spitfire baby sister out of trouble (most of the time). She knows everyone in Maryville, from her best friend Arden to kind newcomer Miss Lorena to the mysterious Bee Lady.
And Della knows what to do when the sickness that landed her mama in the hospital four years ago spirals out of control again, and Mama starts hearing people who aren’t there, scrubbing the kitchen floor until her hands are raw, and waking up at night to cut the black seeds from all the watermelons in the house. With Daddy struggling to save the farm from a record-breaking drought, Della decides it’s up to her to heal Mama for good. And she knows just how she’ll do it: with a jar of the Bee Lady’s magic honey, which has mended the wounds and woes of Maryville for generations.
She doesn’t want to hear the Bee Lady’s truth: that the solution might have less to do with fixing Mama’s brain than with healing Della’s own heart. But as the sweltering summer stretches on, Della must learn — with the help of her family and friends, plus a fingerful of watermelon honey — that love means accepting her mama just as she is.
My note: With a strong sense of place and a narrator who turns everything around her vivid, Where the Watermelons Grow is a beautiful and sometimes heartrending exploration of what it’s like when someone you love is chronically ill.
Things That Surprise You by Jennifer Maschari
Emily Murphy is about to enter middle school. She’s sort of excited… though not nearly as much as her best friend Hazel, who is ready for everything to be new. Emily wishes she and Hazel could just continue on as they always have, being the biggest fans ever of the Unicorn Chronicles, making up dance moves, and getting their regular order at The Slice.
But things are changing. At home, Emily and her mom are learning to move on after her parents’ divorce. Hardest of all, her beloved sister Mina has been in a treatment facility to deal with her anorexia. Emily is eager to have her back, but anxious about her sister getting sick again.
Hazel is changing too. She has new friends from the field hockey team, is starting to wear makeup, and have crushes on boys. Emily is trying to keep up, but she keeps doing and saying the wrong thing. She want to be the perfect new Emily. But who is that really?
Things That Surprise You is a beautifully layered novel about navigating the often shifting bonds of family and friendship, and learning how to put the pieces back together when things fall apart.
My note: I found this book unexpectedly poignant, and teared up in several unexpected places. A lovely little read. Also, that cover!
Paper Wishes by Lois Sepahban
A moving debut novel about a girl whose family is relocated to a Japanese internment camp during World War II — and the dog she has to leave behind.
Ten-year-old Manami did not realize how peaceful her family’s life on Bainbridge Island was until the day it all changed. It’s 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Manami and her family are Japanese American, which means that the government says they must leave their home by the sea and join other Japanese Americans at a prison camp in the desert. Manami is sad to go, but even worse is that they are going to have to give her dog, Yujiin, to a neighbor to take care of. Manami decides to sneak Yujiin under her coat, but she is caught and forced to abandon him. She is devastated but clings to the hope that somehow Yujiin will find his way to the camp and make her family whole again. It isn’t until she finds a way to let go of her guilt that Manami can accept all that has happened to her family.
My note: I wish this book had existed when I was a kid learning about this era. Beautifully written and deeply engaging, it’s a great story and a great window into history.
The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day by Christopher Edge
How do you know you really exist?
It’s Maisie’s birthday and she can’t wait to open her presents. She’s hoping for the things she needs to build her own nuclear reactor. But she wakes to an empty house and outside the front door is nothing but a terrifying, all-consuming blackness. Trapped in an ever-shifting reality, Maisie knows that she will have to use the laws of the universe and the love of her family to survive. And even that might not be enough…
A mind-bending mystery for anyone who’s ever asked questions.
My note: Christopher Edge is amazing at taking high-concept STEM topics and turning them into gripping stories. I couldn’t put this one down and the twist left me breathless.
All Four Stars by Tara Dairman
Meet Gladys Gatsby: New York’s toughest restaurant critic. (Just don’t tell anyone that she’s in sixth grade.)
Gladys Gatsby has been cooking gourmet dishes since the age of seven, only her fast-food-loving parents have no idea! Now she’s eleven, and after a crème brûlée accident (just a small fire), Gladys is cut off from the kitchen (and her allowance). She’s devastated but soon finds just the right opportunity to pay her parents back when she’s mistakenly contacted to write a restaurant review for one of the largest newspapers in the world.
But in order to meet her deadline and keep her dream job, Gladys must cook her way into the heart of her sixth-grade archenemy and sneak into New York City — all while keeping her identity a secret! Easy as pie, right?
My note: I picked up this book to read it before giving it to a baking-enthused niece, but quickly found myself charmed by everything about it. A fun, quirky story that taught me a thing or two about food.
The Van Gogh Deception by Deron R. Hicks
When a young boy is discovered in Washington DC’s National Gallery without any recollection of who he is, so begins a high-stakes race to unravel the greatest mystery of all: his identity. As the stakes continue to rise, the boy must piece together the disjointed clues of his origins while using his limited knowledge to stop one of the greatest art frauds ever attempted.
Digitally interactive, this museum mystery offers QR codes woven throughout the book that bring renowned paintings to readers’ fingertips.
My note: I picked up this one for another niece (who loves mysteries), and the same thing happened again! I’ve been interested in art fraud ever since White Collar, and this is the perfect kid-sized introduction. Plus it’s full of codes you can scan to look at the art as you read. An ingenious way to teach some stuff about art and art history while also weaving an engrossing plot.
The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, the Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz, Hatem Aly (Illustrations)
1242. On a dark night, travelers from across France cross paths at an inn and begin to tell stories of three children. Their adventures take them on a chase through France: they are taken captive by knights, sit alongside a king, and save the land from a farting dragon. On the run to escape prejudice and persecution and save precious and holy texts from being burned, their quest drives them forward to a final showdown at Mont Saint-Michel, where all will come to question if these children can perform the miracles of saints.
Join William, an oblate on a mission from his monastery; Jacob, a Jewish boy who has fled his burning village; and Jeanne, a peasant girl who hides her prophetic visions. They are accompanied by Jeanne’s loyal greyhound, Gwenforte… recently brought back from the dead. Told in multiple voices, in a style reminiscent of The Canterbury Tales, our narrator collects their stories and the saga of these three unlikely allies begins to come together.
My note: With fun characters and sneaky bits of historical information, this book is a whole lot of fun. If you’re a little bit of a manuscript/folktale/early British literature nerd like me, there’s even more to enjoy. I especially liked the marginalia doodles.
Escape from Aleppo by N.H. Senzai
Silver and gold balloons. A birthday cake covered in pink roses. A new dress.
Nadia stands at the center of attention in her parents’ elegant dining room. This is the best day of my life, she thinks. Everyone is about to sing “Happy Birthday,” when her uncle calls from the living room, “Baba, brothers, you need to see this.” Reluctantly, she follows her family into the other room. On TV, a reporter stands near an overturned vegetable cart on a dusty street. Beside it is a mound of smoldering ashes. The reporter explains that a vegetable vendor in the city of Tunis burned himself alive, protesting corrupt government officials who have been harassing his business. Nadia frowns.
It is December 17, 2010: Nadia’s twelfth birthday and the beginning of the Arab Spring. Soon anti-government protests erupt across the Middle East and, one by one, countries are thrown into turmoil. As civil war flares in Syria and bombs fall across Nadia’s home city of Aleppo, her family decides to flee to safety. Inspired by current events, this novel sheds light on the complicated situation in Syria that has led to an international refugee crisis, and tells the story of one girl’s journey to safety.
My note: The detail in this book amazes me. With extreme focus on a very small chunk of Nadia’s refugee journey, Senzai creates a compelling story that really captures a world turned upside down.
Legends of the Lost Causes by Brad McLelland & Louis Sylvester
The first book in a new middle-grade fantasy action-adventure series set in the Old West.
A band of orphan avengers. A cursed stone. A horde of zombie outlaws. This is Keech Blackwood’s new life after Bad Whiskey Nelson descends upon the Home for Lost Causes and burns it to the ground.
With his home destroyed and his family lost, Keech will have to use the lessons he learned from Pa Abner to hunt down the powerful Char Stone. Luckily, he has the help of a ragtag team of orphans. Together, they’ll travel through treacherous forests, fight off the risen dead, and discover that they share mysterious bonds as they try to track down the legendary stone. Now, it’s a race against the clock, because if Bad Whiskey finds the stone first… all is lost.
My note: Great for readers who crave adventure, have an interest in survival skills, and have the stomach for some grisly moments. Knife of Never Letting Go meets the Old West, with touches of Abhorsen thrown in the mix.
Graphic Novel
Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home by Nora Krug
A revelatory, visually stunning graphic memoir by award-winning artist Nora Krug, telling the story of her attempt to confront the hidden truths of her family’s wartime past in Nazi Germany and to comprehend the forces that have shaped her life, her generation, and history.
Nora Krug was born decades after the fall of the Nazi regime, but the Second World War cast a long shadow throughout her childhood and youth in the city of Karlsruhe, Germany. For Nora, the simple fact of her German citizenship bound her to the Holocaust and its unspeakable atrocities and left her without a sense of cultural belonging. Yet Nora knew little about her own family’s involvement in the war: though all four grandparents lived through the war, they never spoke of it.
In her late thirties, after twelve years in the US, Krug realizes that living abroad has only intensified her need to ask the questions she didn’t dare to as a child and young adult. Returning to Germany, she visits archives, conducts research, and interviews family members, uncovering in the process the stories of her maternal grandfather, a driving teacher in Karlsruhe during the war, and her father’s brother Franz-Karl, who died as a teenage SS soldier in Italy. Her extraordinary quest, spanning continents and generations, pieces together her family’s troubling story and reflects on what it means to be a German of her generation.
Belonging wrestles with the idea of Heimat, the German word for the place that first forms us, where the sensibilities and identity of one generation pass on to the next. In this highly inventive visual memoir — equal parts graphic novel, family scrapbook, and investigative narrative — Nora Krug draws on letters, archival material, flea market finds, and photographs to attempt to understand what it means to belong to one’s country and one’s family. A wholly original record of a German woman’s struggle with the weight of catastrophic history, Belonging is also a reflection on the responsibility that we all have as inheritors of our countries’ pasts.
My note: A quietly vibrant memoir that will make you ponder.
Dam Keeper by Robert Kondo & Dice Tsutsumi
Life in Sunrise Valley is tranquil, but beyond its borders lies certain death. A dangerous black fog looms outside the village, but its inhabitants are kept safe by an ingenious machine known as the dam. Pig’s father built the dam and taught him how to maintain it. And then this brilliant inventor did the unthinkable: he walked into the fog and was never seen again.
Now Pig is the dam keeper. Except for his best friend, Fox, and the town bully, Hippo, few are aware of his tireless efforts. But a new threat is on the horizon — a tidal wave of black fog is descending on Sunrise Valley. Now Pig, Fox, and Hippo must face the greatest danger imaginable: the world on the other side of the dam.
My note: Gorgeous artwork and a simple concept that resonates deeply. I immediately bought this and the second book after finding it at the library.
Non-Fiction
Victoria: Portrait of a Queen by Catherine Reef
Catherine Reef brings history vividly to life in this sumptuously illustrated account of a confident, strong-minded, and influential woman.
Victoria woke one morning at the age of eighteen to discover that her uncle had died and she was now queen. She went on to rule for sixty-three years, with an influence so far-reaching that the decades of her reign now bear her name — the Victorian period. Victoria is filled with the exciting comings and goings of royal life: intrigue and innuendo, scheming advisors, and assassination attempts, not to mention plenty of passion and discord. Includes bibliography, notes, British royal family tree, index.
My note: With beautiful colored pages, this book is almost a work of art. I appreciated that the author painted Victoria and her family in an ordinary light — not shying away from their deep flaws. It left me wanting to learn more.
Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia Kang & Nate Pedersen
Discover 67 shocking-but-true medical misfires that run the gamut from bizarre to deadly. Like when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When snorting skull moss was a cure for a bloody nose. When consuming mail-order tapeworms was a latter-day fad diet. Or when snake oil salesmen peddled strychnine (used in rat poison) as an aphrodisiac in the ’60s. Seamlessly combining macabre humor with hard science and compelling storytelling, Quackery is a visually rich and information-packed exploration of history’s most outlandish cures, experiments, and scams.
A humorous book that delves into some of the wacky but true ways that humans have looked to cure their ills. Leeches, mercury, strychnine, and lobotomies are a few of the topics that explore what lengths society has gone in the search for health.
My note: This book. Though a bit gruesome for certain readers, I found it absolutely fascinating. Plus you learn all sorts of funny stories that make for great casual conversation! Ahem, in the right company, I mean.
National Parks of the USA by Kate Siber, Chris Turnham (Illustrations)
Take a tour of America’s great outdoors and discover the beauty and diversity of its most iconic and majestic national parks. Explore Florida’s river-laced Everglades, travel down the white water rapids of the Grand Canyon, trek across the deserts of Death Valley and scale the soaring summits of the Rocky Mountains with this book that brings you up close to nature’s greatest adventures. Packed with maps and fascinating facts about the flora and fauna unique to each park, this fully-illustrated coast-to-coast journey documents the nation’s most magnificent and sacred places — and shows why they should be preserved for future generations to enjoy. With maps and information about flora and fauna found in each of the 21 icon parks portrayed, this is a fantastic celebration of the great outdoors.
My note: As a home-body overly fond of air conditioning, I have to say: Can I go hiking now? This book is a marvelous collection of tidbits about the national parks and the history, plant life, and animals that populate them.
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler
A divinity professor and young mother with a Stage IV cancer diagnosis explores the pain and joy of living without certainty.
Thirty-five-year-old Kate Bowler was a professor at the school of divinity at Duke, and had finally had a baby with her childhood sweetheart after years of trying, when she began to feel jabbing pains in her stomach. She lost thirty pounds, chugged antacid, and visited doctors for three months before she was finally diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer.
As she navigates the aftermath of her diagnosis, Kate pulls the reader deeply into her life, which is populated with a colorful, often hilarious collection of friends, pastors, parents, and doctors, and shares her laser-sharp reflections on faith, friendship, love, and death. She wonders why suffering makes her feel like a loser and explores the burden of positivity. Trying to relish the time she still has with her son and husband, she realizes she must change her habit of skipping to the end and planning the next move. A historian of the “American prosperity gospel” — the creed of the mega-churches that promises believers a cure for tragedy, if they just want it badly enough — Bowler finds that, in the wake of her diagnosis, she craves these same “outrageous certainties.” She wants to know why it’s so hard to surrender control over that which you have no control. She contends with the terrifying fact that, even for her husband and child, she is not the lynchpin of existence, and that even without her, life will go on.
On the page, Kate Bowler is warm, witty, and ruthless, and, like Paul Kalanithi, one of the talented, courageous few who can articulate the grief she feels as she contemplates her own mortality.
My note: Read this in a gulp, sometimes chuckling and sometimes through tears. It gave me a lot to ponder about the ways religious people (especially in America) respond to illness.
The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepset Questions about God by Dan B. Allender, Tremper Longman III, Mike Edwards, & Larry Mead
All emotion — whether positive or negative — can give us a glimpse of the true nature of God. We want to control our negative emotions and dark desires. God wants us to recognize them as the cry of our soul to be made right with Him. Beginning with the Psalms, Cry of the Soul explores what Scripture says about our darker emotions and points us to ways of honoring God as we faithfully embrace the full range of our emotional life.
My note: I. Love. This. Book. I would consider it a must-read for Christians who want to really dive into their faith and untangle the cultural lies we learn in the church about emotion.
What did you read and love in 2018? Leave a comment and let me know!
