Amazon's Best Books of 2013: Picture Books

So as I was poking around Amazon.com yesterday shopping for Christmas gifts, I came across their best books of 2013 lists.  Since I had discussed the Goodreads lists yesterday, I thought it might be fun to compare the Amazon books as well.

Amazon splits their books up by age category, so since I read a little bit of everything, I'm going to spend a few days looking at all the categories for children's books, which covers picture books through YA.  I'm skipping the board books because, well, I just don't read any board books.

So today's feature is picture books.  I don't read a lot of picture books, since I don't have any kids or nieces and nephews.  But I am a illustration junkie, and I am collecting picture books (slowly) for the day when I might have kids around to enjoy them.  So that being said, for those of you who might also be looking for new books to recommend to little ones, here's Amazon.com's choice of the best picture books of 2013 (with commentary from yours truly :)

1.  The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers - This one looks like a cute one. It actually won the Goodreads Choice Awards in picture books.  I love the idea of crayons "quitting".  If you're looking for a different picture book where office supplies come to life, I highly recommend The Little Red Pen. 

2.  Steam Train, Dream Train by Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld - A train book for kids, what's  not to like.  This one looks cute, I might have to grab it from the library to check out the illustrations further too. 

3.  Llama Llama and the Bully Goat by Anna Dewdney - Another addition to the Llama Llama series of picture books, so not surprising this one made the list. I haven't ever read any of these, but they must do well because there's way more of them published than I thought. Interesting that this one takes on the subject of bullying that seems to be prevalent these days.

4.   I'd Know You Anywhere, My Love by Nancy Tillman - Another one I am not familiar with. I sense that will be a theme on this post... This one looks like another sentimental, bring tears to your eyes picture book a la Love You Forever.
 

5.  Journey by Aaron Becker - The illustrations of this one look AMAZING. Looks like a wordless picture book from the preview on Amazon, but I'm not sure if it is or not. Reminds me of the graphic novel works that Kazu Kibuishi does.

6.  Mr. Wuffles! by David Wiesner - What's not to love with this one? It has a cat in it! The premise reminds me a bit of the Binky the Space Cat books.

7.  Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown - Not getting much about this one from the synopsis on Amazon. Looks like it might be interesting though. Does it make of anyone else think of Leo the Late Bloomer? I don't know why, maybe it's the tiger...

8.  Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson - This one looks cute. An interactive type book about the seasons. Very fun. But I'd have to say my absolute all-time favorite book about different seasons is Un-Brella by Scott Franson.

9.  Dream Animals: A Bedtime Journey by Emily Winfield Martin - I love how when a synopsis has "for fans of (Book A) and (Book B)" and I've never heard of either book, and therefore the comparison means nothing to me. Yeah, that's pretty much this book. Great looking illustrations though.

10.  Twenty Big Trucks in the Middle of the Street by Mark Lee and Kurt Cyrus - This books like a book my brother would have LOVED when he was growing up. Seriously, what little boy doesn't love a book about big trucks?

11.  Count the Monkeys by Mac Barnett and Kevin Cornell - A counting book of sorts. It looks like the little details in the illustrations totally make this book what it is.

12.  Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great by Bob Shea - Another finalist from the Goodreads Awards. I have to say I think I need to pick this one up. I love just about anything with unicorns, even sarcastically speaking. And if you'd like a recommendation for another mythological beast picture book, I absolutely adored reading Dragons Love Tacos earlier this year.

13.  Cowpoke Clyde and Dirty Dawg by Lori Mortensen and Michael Allen - Another kid no brainer. Love anything with cowboys. This one is written in verse too, which is pretty darn tricky to do! Seems like it would be easy, but somehow in a picture book it's not.

14.  If You Want to See a Whale by Julie Fogliano and Erin Stead - The synopsis on Amazon says this is a "quiet" picture book. Not really sure what that means, but if there's a cover I'd chose from these that's quiet, this would be it.

15.  The Bear's Song by Benjamin Chaud - This almost sounds a little bit like Finding Nemo, only with bears. The illustrations are definitely unique, but I'm not sure I'm sold on them yet. Guess I'll need to reserve judgement until I see them in person.

16.  Hello, My Name Is Ruby by Philip C. Stead - And for some reason, this one makes me think of Are You My Mother? Weird these connections my brain keeps coming up with...

17.  The Matchbox Diary by Paul Fleischman and Bagram Ibatoulline - So this is the lone book on this list I've actually read. I enjoyed it, I thought it was an interesting concept, and it does a good job of getting the message across. The illustrations didn't particularly stand out to me, but I think they were appropriate for the subject. This is another one that made it on the Goodreads finalist list.

18.  Ol' Mama Squirrel by David Ezra Stein - I love squirrels. I think they're cute. But the squirrels in this book do not look cute. Hmmm... think this is one where the text better outshine the illustrations for sure.

19.  Daredevil: The Daring Life of Betty Skelton by Meghan McCarthy - I've never heard of Betty Skelton before, maybe because she's probably outshadowed by Amelia Earhart. But this looks like it might be interesting. I don't read a lot of non-fiction picture books, but my favorite that I read this year is from one of my favorite standby authors Kathleen Krull: Louisa May's Battle: How the Civil War Led to Little Women.

20.  Toys in Space by Mini Grey - This one reminds me a lot of Toy Story. It might be interesting to pick it up and see where they go with it.

Well, there you have it, Amazon's top 20 picture books for the year. But I have to say, I haven't read most of them, so I don't really know if I agree or not. But in the realm of picture books I've read this year, I highly recommend Mustache Baby, Memoirs of a Goldfish, and it's companion Memoirs of a Hamster. Great illustrations, great stories, great concepts. You can't go wrong with any of those 3 for sure.

Goodreads Best Books of 2013

One of the things you're bound to see this time of year as we come to a close is "Best Of" lists.  And books are no exception of course.  I'm participating in the Cybils again this year, which is sort of a cross between the Newberrys and the Webby Awards (popularity meets literary merit). 

One of the things I look forward to every year is voting on the Goodreads Choice Awards. Now, these are pure popularity.  The winners were recently announced and it's made me realize something: I really don't like most popular books.  Sure, I enjoyed Twilight and Hunger Games, and Harry Potter are some of my favorites, but beyond that, the books that seem to be popular are not the one I'm drawn to.  Interesting. 

In some ways, I'm not really sure why I look forward to the Goodreads Choice Awards, because the books I pick almost never win.  Okay, one did this year, the Jim Henson book in History.  Which I actually haven't even read, but just picked because I love Jim Henson.  And come to think of it, if lots of other people do the same thing I do (just pick books they recognize) then perhaps that's why the popular books are the ones that always win.  Hmmmm...

Anyway, if you'd like to see the books Goodreads members chose as the best books for 2013, head over to the awards page on the Goodreads site.  You can also look at past year winners too. 

Best Book Covers of 2010

So after a couple days' delay (things are still crazy around here) I'm back with another top 10 from 2010. Today we're looking at the best book covers from 2010. Now, I haven't read all of these, but the covers to these books are super cool anyway.Those of you who are longtime readers are familiar with how much I gush about covers during my Waiting on Wednesday posts. So I guess I'm somewhat of a cover enthusiast. I love to gush about good covers, and rant about bad ones.

So let me tell you, this was hard. I mean, really, really, really hard for me to choose only 10. I got it narrowed down to 20 fairly easily, and 15 eventually, but narrowing it down to only 10 was killer. But after looking at the 10 I finally chose, I saw that they narrowed down into semi-categories. And I thought it would be fun to present them that way. Perhaps in a few days I'll post the runner ups, because there were a lot of great book covers last year.

So here are my Top 10 Covers of 2010. I made sure I uploaded large files, so all of these can be clicked on and be viewed large size in all their splendid glory.

Enjoy!

Category 1: Period Dresses

Oh, the dresses. I can't help it, I think my obsession with these types of covers comes from living two semesters with a roommate who was majoring in fashion design with a theatrical costume emphasis. And it's probably party of my inner girly-girl escaping as well.

I've noticed that I tend to favor photographic covers (although they are sometimes heavily photoshopped) like The Bad Queen: Rules and Instructions for Marie-Antoinette and The Agency 2: The Body at the Tower show. But I also really love the painting style for The Thirteenth Princess. Something about it just glows. By the way, The Thirteenth Princess was one of the covers featured for the 2010 12 Days of Christmas giveaways this year, and it was probably the second least correctly guess cover of the bunch.

Which reminds me, I still need to post the answers for those. One more thing on the to-do list...


Category 2: Pretty Colors

I can't help it. I love color. And the colors in these covers are awesome. I love how the blue of Forgive My Fins instantly makes me think of mermaids (which the book is about, obviously). Either that or a girl who's frostbitten, but there you go.

I really like the effect of Jekel Loves Hyde as well. The sickly green glow of that boiling beaker nicely contrasts with the purple of Jill's shirt. This is one of the books on this list that I have read, and I think this cover perfectly captures the tone of the book.

And last we come to that beautiful shade of green on the Matched cover. I've heard this one is even more pretty in person because it has a pearly sheen to it. I haven't seen it in real life yet (though I do have a copy on it's way in the mail to me, yay!) but even the virtual version is pretty. I like the imagery too, the idea of being trapped in a bubble, which sounds like it really accurately reflects the book. And it's a pretty dress. (I know, I know, I'm gushing about dresses again...)


Category 3: What's with the cat eyes?

Okay, so this might be a stretch to lump these two together. But still, it works! There's something about changing the shape of the pupils in both of these covers that give both of them a subtle hint of the supernatural (without them being scary). Needless to say, Mistwood draws me in right away with the misty woods and castle. And I really like the font used for the title too. And as much as I like this cover, the sequel's is even prettier. Really looking forward to that one too.

Firelight could also go in the pretty colors category. I love the warm feel of the reds in this cover. The moment I saw this cover I knew I had to have the book. It's sitting in my To Be Read pile right now, and I hope it lives up to the expectation I've gotten from the cover. In addition to the subtle change of the eye, I love how you can just barely see the sheen of scales around her eye. Very cool. Or hot... oh, you know what I mean!


Category 4: Ally Carter!


Yeah, I know this is kind of an odd category. But in grouping my covers I noticed I had two left, and both of them were for Ally Carter books. I guess she had a good year for covers in 2010.

First is the new Gallagher Girl cover, Only the Good Spy Young. Can I just say that I've loved these covers for the whole series, but this one by far has to be my favorite. The plaid theme is super cool on the spine, and the title treatments are always fun. But this one is PINK! My favorite color. So of course, no future GG books will ever be as much favorite as this one is.

And last by certainly not least, is Heist Society. I already wanted to read this book as soon as read the description. But when I saw the cover, I knew I had to have it NOW. I love the juxtaposition of Kat's sunglasses and the painting reflected in them. I've seen another cover for this book (I think it's the UK or Australian cover, maybe?) where Kat (who's blond instead of brunette) is in front of a painting in a ski cap with a bunch of red lasers around her. And while that might say "thief" more than this cover does, I love this cover so much more. The other version just doesn't feel like Kat to me. She has so much pizazz, and I think this cover shows that way better.


So that's my Top Ten Covers for 2010. What were your favorites?

Best Book Trailers of 2010

Book trailers have come a long way. The first time I saw a book trailer was in 2007 I think, and it wasn't much more than a bunch of pictures and some text. And while there's nothing wrong with that kind of trailer, they've also gotten lots more sophisticated over the last 3 years.

So my first 2010 wrap up is sharing with you (in no particular order) my top 10 book trailers of 2010. I haven't read all of these (actually I haven't read most of them) but they sure do make me want to read them all right away!

So which trailers were your favorite this year? Any you really liked that I missed?

Breathless Reads (The Eternal Ones, The Replacement, Nightshade, Matched, and Sapphique)


The Karma Club by Jessica Brody


Heist Society by Ally Carter


Vixen (The Flappers) by Jillian Larkin


Matched by Ally Condie


Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale (not actually a 2010 book, but I saw the trailer on Shannon Hale's blog in Feb of 2010, which is why it makes the cut)


The Poison Diaries by Maryrose Wood


Mistwood by Leah Cypess


Hearts at Stake (Drake Chronicles, Book 1) by Alyxandra Harvey (also technically a 2009 book, but I saw in Feb 2010)


The Iron Fey by Julie Kagawa