Slice of Life: Beverly Cleary's 100th Birthday!

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Dana, Beth, Anna, Kathleen, and Deb

                   for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.

Several weeks ago I started hearing mention of Beverly Cleary's upcoming 100th birthday.  I quickly checked the calendar, "Wonderful!  April 12th is a Tuesday.  We'll have a celebration at our after school book club."  Except that this week is our spring break.  

"Okay, fine.  I'll invite some grown-up friends over to share birthday cake and watch the Ramona movie that Karen gave me for Christmas several years ago."  Except that's the day I'm flying home from my spring break trip visiting my sis in CA.

And then I got an idea to honor Beverly Cleary's birthday with a list of 100 middle grade books that I love.  Only somehow this date crept up on me, and suddenly it was the day before Beverly's birthday, and I was in California at my sister's house. I got up extra early on Monday to read Ready Player One for my adult book club which meets on Wednesday evening.  Except that before I knew it, I was jotting down favorite titles for my 100 MG Books I Love list to honor Beverly Clearly's 100th birthday.   It's been challenging to create the list without walking the shelves of our middle school library, scanning my own bookshelves, or consulting the book I keep (at home) of books I've read.  (Don't be surprised to see a few changes to the list after I return home on Tuesday.)

I refuse to put the books in order by preference.  I love them all, and it's impossible to assign numbers to them.  So they are arranged in alphabetical order by author's last name.  I decided that I could only choose one book by a specific author.  So know that while I may adore multiple books by an author, for this list I chose my favorite book by a specific author.  

Drum roll and confetti, please!  

In Honor of Beverly Cleary's 100th Birthday...

100 Favorite Book Titles by Middle Grade Authors!

 

Alcott, Louisa May			Little Women
Alexander, Kwame			The Crossover
Anderson, Laurie Halse			Chains
Applegate, Katherine			Home of the Brave
Baskin, Nora Raleigh			Anything But Typical
Bauer, Joan			Rules of the Road
Benjamin, Ali			The Thing About Jellyfish
Birdsall, Jeanne			The Penderwicks
Blume, Judy			Are You There, God?  It's Me, Margaret
Bradley, Emily Brubaker			The War that Saved My Life
Brink, Carol Ryrie			Caddie Woodlawn
Burnett, Frances Hodgson			The Secret Garden
Buyea, Rob			Because of Mr. Terupt
Carey, Janet Lee			Dragon's  Keep
Cleary, Beverly			Ramona's World
Codell, Esme Raji			Sahara Special
Cooper, Susan			The Boggart
Cummings, Priscilla			Red Kayak
Curtis, Christopher Paul			The Watsons Go to Birmingham
Dahl, Roald			Danny, the Champion of the World
DiCamillo, Kate			Because of Winn-Dixie
Draper, Sharon			Out of My Mind
Eager, Edward			Half-Magic
Ellis, Deborah			The Breadwinner
Farmer, Nancy			The House of the Scorpion
Field, Rachel			Hitty, Her First Hundred Years
Fitzhugh, Lousie			Harriet the Spy
Gannett, Ruth Stiles			My Father's Dragon
Gardiner, John			Stone Fox
Gemeinhart, Dan			The Honest Truth
Giff, Patricia Reilly			Eleven
Going, K. L.			The Liberation of Gabriel King
Goldblatt, Mark			Twerp
Graff, Lisa			Absolutely Almost
Hannigan, Katherine			Ida B
Henkes, Kevin			Bird Lake Moon
Hesse, Karen			Out of the Dust
Hiaasen, Carl			Hoot
Hillton, Marilyn			Full Cicada Moon
Holm, Jennifer L.			Sunny Side Up
Holt, Kimberly Willis			My Louisiana Sky
Hunt, Lynda Mullaly			One for the Murphys
Jacobson, Jennifer			Small as an Elephant
Jones, Kelly			Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer
Klages, Ellen			The Green Glass Sea
Knowles, Jo			See You at Harry's
Konigsburg, E. L.			From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Kuhlman, Evan			Brother from a Box
Lai, Thahhna			Inside Out and Back Again
Larson, Kirby			Hattie Big Sky
Levine, Gail Carson			Dave at Night
Levine, Kristin			The Lions of Little Rock
Lewis, C. S.			The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Lin, Grace			Where the Mountain Meets the Moon
Lovelace, Maud Hart			Betsy-Tacy
Lowry, Lois			Gossamer
MacLachlan, Patricia			Sarah, Plain and Tall
Magorian, Michelle			Good Night, Mr. Tom
Martin, Ann			Rain Reign
Mass, Wendy			A Mango-shaped Space
McKay, Hilary			Saffy's Angel
Messner, Kate			The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z
Montgomery, L. M.			Anne of Green Gables
Murphy, Pat			Wild Girls
Ness, Patrick			A Monster Calls
Nielsen, Jennifer A.			A Night Divided
Nielsen, Susan			Word Nerd
O'Dell, Scott			Island of the Blue Dolphins
Palacio, R. J.			Wonder
Park, Linda Sue			Project Mulberry
Pearsall, Shelley			The 7th Most Important Thing
Peck, Robert Newton			Soup
Pennypacker, Sarah			Pax
Rawls, Wilson			Summer of the Monkeys
Rex, Adam			The True Meaning of Smekday
Rhodes, Jewell Parker			Ninth Ward
Rowling, J. K.			Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Rundell, Katherine			Rooftoppers
Ryan, Pam Munoz			Esperanza Rising
Scattergood, Augusta			Glory Be
Schlick- Noe, Katherine			Something to Hold
Schmidt, Gary			The Wednesday Wars
Shafer, Audrey			The Mailbox
Sloan, Holly Goldberg			Counting by 7s
Speare, Elizabeth George			The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Spinelli, Jerry			Stargirl
Stead, Rebecca			Goodbye Stranger
Tashjian, Janet			My Life as a Book
Taylor, Mildred D.			Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Turnage, Sheila			Three Times Lucky
Turner, Megan Whelan			The Thief
Twain, Mark			The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Ursu, Anne			Breadcrumbs
Vaswani, Neela			Same Sun Here
White, E. B.			Charlotte's Web
Wiles, Deborah			Each Little Bird that Sings
Williams-Garcia, Rita			One Crazy Summer
Wood, Maryrose			The Mysterious Howling
Woodson, Jacqueline			Brown Girl Dreaming
Zimmer, Tracey Vaughn		Reaching for Sun