Holiday Gift-Booking Redux

I went a little hog-wild with book shopping this Christmas season, but supporting indie bookstores, authors, and literacy feels like a triple win to me. Here are the books I bought this year. I hope you look them up and buy a bunch of them, if only because retrieving all these hyperlinks took about a month. You're welcome. ;) 

For the teens on my list:

• An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. Snagged this at Vroman’s Hastings Ranch.
• Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak. Signed edition, no less, from Once Upon a Time books in Montrose, CA. Don’t know much about it, but I love The Book Thief desperately, so it was a must-buy.
• Orphan Monster Spy by Matt Killeen. Edited by my Viking editor, Kendra Levin, and I know she has impeccable taste. ;)
• Monstrous Devices by Damien Love. I confess it; it was a cover love buy. I found it face-out at Once Upon a Time and couldn’t resist. “Beware of things that go click in the night” was a tagline that worked for me.
  
• The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. I just love Patrick Ness, so that’s all there is to it. 

For a teen who has recently suffered a loss in the family, I bought A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd. Of course, one doesn’t need a specific reason to love this book.

For a 10-ish girl who wanted fantasy, but “not too complicated,” one who had read A Wrinkle and Time and liked it but found it perhaps a bit complicated, I bought:

• The Splintered Light by Ginger Johnson. A vivid book by a radiant debut author and--lucky me--dear friend.
• The Magic Half by Annie Barrows
• A Most Magical Girl by Karen Foxlee
• Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. 
• Snow & Rose by Emily Winfield Martin

These last four were recommended to me by bookseller Jessica Palacios at Once Upon a Time. Ella Enchanted is required reading. The rest, I haven't yet read. 

• For two eight-ish boys, I bought The Wild Robot and The WildRobot Escapes by Peter Brown. I sat next to him on a panel at Books of Wonder earlier this year. He was super chill, very humble, and totally likable. The room was packed with young boys and their patient parents who’d been dragged along because meeting Peter Brown HAD TO happen. Their reverent passion for The Wild Robot was a sight to warm the heart. God bless everyone who can write books that make kids love reading that much.
• I also bought The Nutcracker Mice by Kristin Kladstrup, and illustrated by Brett Helquist, for a boy who especially loves stories about animals, and books with pictures. Bought at Belmont Books. 
• For a five year old boy who is just learning to read and ready for read-alouds with some heft, I bought the Paddington boxed set, and Saving Winslow by Sharon Creech. It looks utterly adorable. Wish I'd had time to sneak a read before wrapping it. 

For the picture book crew on my list, I bought:

• The Wolf, The Duck,& the Mouse by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen.
• Puddle Pug by Kim Norman and illustrated by Keika Yamaguchi.
  Charming and fun.
• The Wall in the Middle of the Book by Jon Agee. Such a hoot.
• Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover by Markus Motum
• A is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing American Women by Lynne Cheney, illustrated by RobinPreiss Glasser (of Fancy Nancy fame).
• Abigail by Catherine Rayner. You can probably guess it: there’s a very sweet little Abigail on my Christmas list.

The whole family gets involved in reading the picture books and gift-wrapping everything for our favorite little people. May we always have young ones to buy books for! What I love best about this list is that it’s chock-full of discoveries I could never have made if I hadn’t shopped at an indie bookstore, with a curated selection to show me things I could never have found through online bookstores, and with the guidance of booksellers who know their stock and know how to match readers with their next favorite book. Where would we be without them?