Best YA titles

Adele from Persnickety Snark is compiling a list of the Top 100 YA Novels of All Time. I've just agonised over my own personal Top 10 to add to the list. It was HARD, and I'm sure I've forgotten some. But here they are:

1. Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
2. Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody
3. Ready or Not by Meg Cabot
4. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
5. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
6. Mandragora by David McRobbie
7. Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce
8. Skellig by David Almond
9. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
   
10. Abyssinia by Ursula Dubosarsky

I actually started with a list of 20, and getting it down to 10 felt a bit like murder. So here're the runners-up, all of which I also adore:

Del Del by Victor Kelleher
So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld
Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Forever by Judy Blume
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
Space Demons by Gillian Rubenstein
Doing It by Melvin Burgess
48 Shades of Brown by Nick Earls
Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

What are yours?

Spring Things

The splendiferous Brigid Lowry is in The Residence over at insideadog, and is encouraging a creative spring clean. And lists! I love lists.

Things That Would Make Me Happy

• a night at home eating chili and watching the West Wing
  
• a title for my crusades book
  
• an Obama presidency
  
• about 700 years to catch up on reading
  
• for Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels to never end
  
• making all my Christmas presents this year
  

Things I am Prepared to do Without

• Australian Idol
  
• for that matter, television-on-television (DVDs is different)
  
• alcohol on weeknights
  
• books about dead girls in country towns
  
• the twelve political blogs I'm currently reading (i could prolly cut it down to eight)

Relax, Trust, Surrender.