Kristin Wolden Nitz

Librarian Betsy Bird at Fuse#8 is doing an unscientific poll of the Top 100 chapter books. It closes tonight at midnight if you care to participate.  I probably would have seen this before if I hadn’t been so busy finishing the revisions to my YA mystery.    So I decided to throw together a list of my top ten picks.  There might have been some shifting around if I’d given it more serious thought.   And there might be some books by the same author that SHOULD have made it onto the list except that I decided not to list more than one book of any given author.  After I hit send, I realized that I put one book on twice.  (Oops!) So I revised it a bit for here.  Since I have more time today, I’m going to make a few notes:

1. The Grey King by Susan Cooper  (It’s the fourth book in her DARK IS RISING series, but I read it first because that was all the local library branch had.  I loved it all the same.)

2. Knight’s Castle by Edward Eager   (Edward Eager’s books are so much fun.  SAVING THE GRIFFIN can trace its literary roots back to KNIGHT’S CASTLE, HALF MAGIC, THE TIME GARDEN and their siblings.) 

3. The City of Gold and Lead (This is the second book of John Christopher’s original TRIPOD trilogy.  THE WHITE MOUNTAINS comes first, but this one hit me the hardest.)

4. The Silver Chair  C.S. Lewis  (Jill Pole was my hero!)

5. Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth….Konigsberg (I could relate to Elizabeth, and I had my own Jennifer.)

6.  My Side of the Mountain  (Great adventure. A wonderful survival story.)

7. Wolves of Willoughby Chase  by Joan Aiken  (I also adored BLACKHEARTS IN BATTERSEA and NIGHTBIRDS ON NANTUCKET.  I’m afraid the others in the series left me a bit cold.)

8. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine   (My most recent title on the list.  For the rest of this list, I was going by the books that I had a deep and abiding passion for back in elementary school.)

9. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein.  (I read THE LORD OF THE RINGS when I was eleven also, but it really doesn’t fit in as a chapter book.)

10. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol.  (I also liked ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS very, very much.)