Betsy Bird at Fuse #8 is doing a Top 100 Middle Grade books poll to go with last year’s Top 100 Picture Books. She’s asking people to send in a ranked list of their Top 10 middle grade novels. So, how about it, Inkpotters?

This is the sort of thing I could spend a week on, so I decided to just do it, off the top of my head, no second guessing, no staring at bookshelves. I couldn’t decide whether to focus on books I loved as a kid or the ones I’ve discovered as an adult. Many of the books I adored as a child didn’t hold up reading them later–but some of those I loved so much that I decided it didn’t matter. So here is my ill-considered, irrational list, privileging largely the books that I adored as a child, with some new ones that made me feel that way again.
1) Anne of Green Gables

2) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
3) Betsy Tacy
4) The Phantom Tollbooth
5) From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler
6) Ballet Shoes
7) The Secret Garden
8) The Tale of Despereaux
9) Holes
10) When You Reach Me