Several of the annual best books lists have appeared recently (see the links to the right). Again this year, we will collate the titles from various lists into one Excel file, with ISBNs, for your use in spending any left-over book funds.

First up is the 2012 — Childrens Best Books Collated, Excel File, with a total of 175 titles selected by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, the Washington Post as well as the New York Times Book Review’s selection of the Best Illustrated Books [UPDATE: The list is up to 275 titles, now that we’ve added the Horn Book and SLJ picks].

As we’ve learned to expect, there’s very little concensus. Just two titles were picked by all four sources:

Wonder, R. J. Palacio, (RH/ Knopf BYR)

Son, Lois Lowry, (HMH)

Even the National Book Award finalists aren’t shoe-ins; the only one selected as a Best Book is Bomb: The Race to Build–and Steal–the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin (Macmillan/ Flash Point), a Washington Post pick. Even the winner, Goblin Secrets by William Alexander (S&S/ Margaret K. McElderry) wasn’t picked by any other source.

More best books lists are coming. As they appear, we will add the titles to the file.

Look for the collated spreadsheet for adult titles later this week.

Thanks to Edelweiss Tags and Custom Exports features, compiling the lists was much easier this year. Also, for the first time, we were able to include links to publisher descriptions of each title, which often include valuable selection information, such as views of interior pages (for instance the recently-release, This Moose Belongs to Me).

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2012 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Best Books 2012, Childrens and YA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.