Designed by Emily of Emily’s Reading Room

The final genre topic of Armchair BEA is one near and dear to my heart: kidlit and yalit.

Until last fall, I would have told you that I was a young adult aficionado. I like Sarah Dessen, John Green, and plenty of others who are shelved in the teen room at the library. But then I was chosen as a Cybils young adult realistic fiction judge and I was simultaneously inundated with recently published novels aimed at teenagers and by fellow panelists who read books at speeds that put me to shame. And I discovered I don’t love all young adult fiction equally.

I do not love books with depressing endings. In fact, it might be fair to say that an unhappy ending can entirely reverse my opinion of a book. I also don’t love books that feature virulent illnesses or with serial killers in them.

What I do love is books with strong characters who create a sense of family with people who aren’t related to them. I also love books with characters who make interesting choices or who can be described as quirky or offbeat.

And it may be that I like middle-grade fiction, where the stakes are a little lower and where the stress isn’t as ratched up, just as much as young adult fiction. I had previously suspected that middle-grade fiction was all Wimpy Kid books, but it turns out that some of my favorite books — the early Harry Potter, the Little House on the Prairie books, Anne of Green Gables — all fall into the middle grade category.

If you’re looking for a place to start in either category, these are some of my favorites (with linked reviews where I wrote them) from the past three years:

• An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
• Among Others by Jo Walton
• Crunch by Leslie Connor
• Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
• Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
• Endangered by Eliot Schrefer
• Frindle by Andrew Clements
• Heat by Mike Lupica
• Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
• Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Unusual Children by Ransom Riggs
• Plain Kate by Erin Bow
• Savvy by Ingrid Law
• Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley
• Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
• The Storyteller by Antonia Michaelis
• The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
• When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
• Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

And thus far this year my favorites have included Wonder by R.J. Palacio, The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick, Dodger by Terry Pratchett, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente, The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde, and Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George.

How about you? What’s been your favorite YA/MG book of recent years?