Caroline Starr Rose

picture book and middle-grade author

2012: A Year of Reading

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Here’s a look at everything I’ve read this year!

Clear Off Your Shelves Challenge
Debut Author Challenge
Re-Reads 
** Read Alouds

  
  1. The Story of Beautiful Girl – Rachel Simon
  2. Agatha Christie: An Autobiography – Agatha Christie (NF)
  3. Scarlet – A. C. Gaughen (YA)
  4. One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are – Ann Voskamp (NF)
  5. Swindle – Gordon Korman (MG)**
  6. Breadcrumbs – Anne Ursu (MG)
  7. Wonderstruck – Brian Selznick (MG)**
  8. The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie – Wendy McClure (NF)
  9. A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke – James Horn (NF)
  10. Wonder – R. J. Palacio (MG)
  11. Circle of Secrets – Kimberley Griffiths Little (MG)
  12. A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar – Suzanne Joinson
  13. Chained – Lynne Kelly (MG)
  14. Starters – Lissa Price (YA)
  15. The Fault in Our Stars – John Green (YA)
  16. Toilet Paper Tigers – Gordon Korman (MG)**
  17. Zoobreak – Gordon Korman (MG)**
  18. Love in Mid-Air – Kim Wright Wiley 
  19. The Bee-Loud Glade – Steve Himmer
  20. The One and Only Ivan – Katherine Applegate (MG)
  21. Wildflowers in Winter – Katie Ganshert
  22. Touch Blue – Cynthia Lord (MG)
  23. Under the Never Sky – Veronica Rossi (YA)
  24. A Voice for Kanzas – Debra MacArthur (MG)
  25. The Gathering Storm – Robin Bridges (YA)
  26. A Summer to Die – Lois Lowry (YA)
  27. Where the Broken Heart Still Beats – Carolyn Meyer (YA)
  28. The No-Brainer Wardrobe – Hayley Morgan (NF)
  29. All Over But the Shoutin’ – Rick Bragg (NF)
  30. New Found Land – Alan Wolf (YA)
  31. If I Lie – Corrine Jackson (YA)
  32. Sister – Rosamund Lupton
  33. Emily’s Dress and Other Missing Things (YA)
  34. Hound Dog True – Linda Urban (MG)
  35. Second Sight: An Editor’s Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults  – Cheryl B. Klein (NF)
  36. Glory Be – Augusta Scattergood (MG)
  37. A Breath of Eyre – Eve Marie Mont (YA)
  38. The Mysterious Affair at Styles – Agatha Christie
  39. Sanctuary – Agatha Christie
  40. The Thank You Room – Serenity Bohon (NF)
  41. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
  42. The Wild Wood – Julie Anne Nelson (YA)
  43. Selkirk’s Island: The True and Strange Adventures of the Real Robinson Crusoe – Diana Souhami (NF)
  44. Crossed – Ally Condie (YA)
  45. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains – Nicholas Carr (NF)
  46. The Ruins of Us – Keija Parssinen
  47. Where Things Come Back – John Corey Whaley (YA)
  48. Grave Mercy – Robin LaFevers (YA)
  49. Small Medium at Large – Joanne Levy (MG)
  50. The Mapmaker and the Ghost – Sarvenaz Tash (MG)**
  51. Chime – Franny Billingsley (YA)
  52. The Case of the Deadly Ha-Ha Game –  John R. Erickson (MG)**
  53. Horton Halfpott: or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M’Lady Luggertuck’s Corset – Tom Angleberger (MG)
  54. Cryer’s Cross – Lisa McMann (YA)
  55. A Monster Calls – Patrick Ness (YA)
  56. Remarkable – Lizzie K. Foley (MG)
  57. Paper Covers Rock – Jenny Hubbard (YA)
  58. Code Name Verity – Elizabeth Wein (YA)
  59. Small Damages – Beth Kephart (YA)
  60. Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World – Temple Grandin, Sy Montgomery (MG/NF)
  61. Summer of the Gypsy Moths – Sara Pennypacker (MG)
  62. One for the Murphys – Lynda Mullaly Hunt (MG)
  63. The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg (NF)
  64. Liar and Spy – Rebecca Stead (MG)
  65. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking – Susan Cain (NF)
  66. The Head in Edward Nugent’s Hand: Roanoke’s Forgotten Indians – Michael Leroy Oberg (NF)
  67. Fracture – Megan Miranda (YA)
  68. Inside Out and Back Again – Thanhha Lai (MG)
  69. Writing the Breakout Novel – Donald Maas (NF)
  70. Ender in Exile – Orson Scott Card
  71. The Unnameables – Ellen Booraem (MG)
  72. Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
  73. How to Save a Life – Sara Zarr (YA)
  74. Auracle – Gina Rosati (YA)
  75. The Christian Life: A Doctrinal Introduction – Sinclair Ferguson (NF)
  76. All is Well – Kristin Embry Litchman (MG)
  77. The False Prince – Jennifer Nielsen (MG)
  78. One Thousand White Women – Jim Fergus
  79. The Absolute Value of Mike – Kathryn Erskine (MG)
  80. The Brides of Rollrock Island – Margo Lanagan (YA)
  81. The Girl of Fire and Thorns – Rae Carson (YA)
  82. The Great Unexpected – Sharon Creech (MG)

Stats for the year:
adult titles: 13.8%
I made a point to read more adult titles than I did last year, and I plan to continue to do this. These last few years I’ve let this aspect of my reading lag, and I’ve felt the ramifications of feeling undernourished as a reader. Never again!

non-fiction: 19.5%
  • faith: 2.4%
  • research : 2.4%
  • craft : 2.4%
  • pleasure read: 12%
Though not the genre with the highest percentage, this is truly the year of non-fiction for me. I’m not usually one who reads non-fiction for pleasure, yet look at all those books I read just because they piqued my interest! I’d love to keep this balance in my reading for the rest of my life.

middle grade : 34%
My first love and my primary area of study, this is no surprise to me.

young adult: 31%
Almost every young adult title I’ve read has either been a debut or recent release. Interesting.

debuts: 18%
If you’re looking closely at my list, you’ll see the numbers and percentages don’t jive. That’s because two books that didn’t qualify for the 2012 Debut Challenge were still debuts. 

picture books: ??
Foolishly, I’ve never kept a steady record of the picture books I’ve read. The last two years have been gap years for me, as my boys have started to move beyond this phase in their personal reading, and together we read middle grade. I’ve spent the last few months brushing up on titles I’ve missed and have enjoyed immensely what I’ve read. 

Goals for next year:
Only two. I’ll discuss these during my next post.

What have you read this year? What patterns have you seen emerge?

Comments

  1. Gabrielle Prendergast says

    Great list! Believe it or not there’s only ONE book on both our lists (IVAN!) but many on your list are on my TBR, a few I already own. A MONSTER CALLS, THE GREAT UNEXPECTED, WHERE THINGS COME BACK and I just got STARTERS from the library!

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  3. Kimberley Griffiths Little says

    Great list, Caroline, thanks for sharing. My 2012 list is going up on Monday, if I can get it together.

    Yesterday I read a book that I heard about on another blog (can’t remember where now) so I got it from the library – and it’s been sitting here. I almost took it back because I have 45 books sitting here to be read from the past year, but decided I’d at least give a few pages a try. Could not put it down. Now it’s haunting me. I think you might like it and I’m dying to talk to someone about it. It’s probably the first “end of the world” book for children ever written – in 1973 by Newbery Author, Robert C. O’Brian of “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH” fame – which is such a great book! This was his last book, barely finished right before he died. It’s stunning and could have been written in 2012. Z IS FOR ZACHARIAH. But it’s not about a boy, it’s about a girl after a nuclear holocaust and how she survives. So you got survival – check! And a girl who wants to be a teacher – check! And written in diary form – check! Intense suspense when a stranger shows up – check! Have I whet your appetite yet? 🙂 I think it will be one of my favorite MG’s of 2012 now. And to think I almost sent it back to the library.

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  4. The Pen and Ink Blog says

    I’m impressed by your list. I read a book approximately every three days. Right now I am reading ADULT ROMANCE BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT i’M REVISING. (drat the caps lock!) We had completly different reading lists, but I’ll bet we both had fun. Susan at Pen and Ink

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