2. Imaginary Girls * Nova Ren Suma

3. Matched * Ally Condie

4. Moon Over Manifest * Clare Vanderpool

5. Jane * April Lindner

6. Fire & Hemlock * Diana Wynne Jones

7. Water for Elephants * Sara Gruen

8. The Near Witch * Victoria Schwab

9. The Passage * Justin Cronin

10. How to Save a Life * Sara Zarr

11. The Strange Case of the Origami Yoda * Tom Angleberger

12. Alanna: the First Adventure * Tamora Pierce

13. In the Hand of the Goddess * Tamora Pierce

New Year’s Resolution: Read more books for fun in 2012! Ones that are already on the list to read: Death Comes to Pemberley, Swamplandia, Pure, Bonk, Breadcrumbs, For Darkness Shows the Stars, Everneath, The Selection, Unraveling, The Magicians, Remains of the Day, Okay for Now . . . and who knows what will be added!

The Google Doodle today celebrates the Muppets!

Of course, I grew up watching Sesame Street, back before Elmo had his own line of anything, back when Snuffleupagus was Big Bird’s imaginary friend and no one else believed he was real. And I vaguely remember watching the Muppet Show and all the Muppet movies. Plus Labyrinth, which has long been one of my all-time favorite movies. Growing up when Jim Henson was still alive and behind all the new Muppet ventures was a magical thing, and I think my generation is particularly lucky.

What makes the Muppets so special, for me anyway, is that they are somehow this perfect blend of childhood and adulthood. They are joyous, energetic, not afraid to be surprised or to learn something new, but they are also whip-smart, sly, and knowing. The humor hits the balance between silly and dry, and it never gets old. The Muppets don’t talk down to kids. And they don’t talk up to adults. They are talking to everyone.

I love the post that Jim Henson’s son wrote for Google today. Especially the sense that “family” means anyone you love. And this: “Every day for him was joyously filled with the surprises of other people’s ideas. I often think that if we all lived like that, not only would life be more interesting, we’d all be a lot happier.” I’m lucky to have a job that lets me revel in other people’s ideas every day, too, and I agree that it’s one of the best things in life.

Plus, there’s the wild imagination. In the forms that the puppets take, in the worlds of Labyrinth or Dark Crystal or Fraggle Rock. In the storylines. Anything can happen. Anything can exist. And it can exist alongside us.

But perhaps what has always seemed most magical to me is that in almost everything Jim Henson created, the Muppets existed in our world. Sesame Street’s population was human and Muppets mixed together as though it could happen on any street. Even Labyrinth‘s world existed alongside our own, Sara just had to find her way in (and back out). The Fraggles live down below where human beings live.

Jim Henson gave me a world that could hold anything imaginable. You can go to a play and look up and maybe see Waldorf and Statler in the balcony. You could find a Fraggle in your backyard. The goblins could steal your baby brother. Oscar the Grouch might live in the garbage can in the alley. The world is full of surprising things, and all we have to do is see them.

And one of the things that I learned on 9/11 was that it doesn’t matter if you’ve been in this city for your whole life, for months, or for only hours–if you are here in a moment in which we all need each other, you are a New Yorker, and every other New Yorker is a person you can lean on.

Today, instead of sitting in front of my tv, I lived. I had brunch with friends I’ve known since college. Two of whom have two-year-olds. I got a picture of my 7-week-old nephew in a Steelers jersey and showed him off to everyone. I watched the “Isaac & Ishmael” episode of The West Wing. I did a little work.

And what I keep coming back to is watching my friends’ kids, and my nephew, whose entire lives will be lived in a post-9/11 world, and what else they might see. This is, I imagine, something every generation feels as they watch a new one being born. And so I am glad that what I do is help to give these children stories. Because we need stories to survive. Stories about first days of school, and friends, and families, and losing a first tooth. Stories about fear and courage, loyalty, and discovering who we are. Stories that show us experiences different from our own and ideas that widen our perceptions. Stories that show us we aren’t alone.

As Josh said in the West Wing episode (and come on, who could say anything better than Josh Lyman/Aaron Sorkin?): “Learn things, be good to each other. Read the newspapers, go to the movies, go to a party, read a book. In the meantime, remember pluralism. You want to get these people? You really want to reach in and kill them where they live? Keep accepting more than one idea.”

I think as long as we have stories and each other, we’re going to be okay.

Me (age a few months) & my dad

Around age 3ish, I think.

About age 4 or 5, maybe.

Reading with Dad & Nik

Age 11 on Dad's truck

So it might be no surprise that this discovery on Friday quickly became one of my favorite things on the internet: “You Should Date an Illiterate Girl.”

The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. . . . You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied.

I don’t keep track of how many manuscripts I read for work, or how many times I read each draft of ones that I’m editing, but it’s pretty safe to say that I read Entwined, A Touch Mortal, The Girl of Fire and Thorns, Mistwood, Nightspell, and The Seventh Level several times each!

I received 383 manuscript submissions, 177 of which were agented. Most of the rest were from writers who attended conferences I spoke at.

As the famous letter says, how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. We have to believe in the intangibles.

I believe in light in darkness.

I believe in family.

I believe in friendship.

I believe in generosity.

I believe in God.

I believe in magic, science, creativity, and inspiration.

I believe in joy.

I believe in the power of stories.

I believe in understanding someone without words, in connection, in empathy and sympathy and support, in companionship.

I believe in dedication and in trust.

I believe in laughter.

I believe in knowledge.

I believe in love.

I believe in goodness.

I believe in people.

And I most definitely believe in Santa Claus. I always have and I always will.

December 16 – Friendship How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?

Whenever I encounter the question “What couldn’t you live without?” my answer is my friends. And I’ve been very lucky in my friendships. I’m still friends with the girl who was my very first friend. (Our moms became friends when they were pregnant with us, and her birthday is almost exactly one month after mine, so we have known each other our whole lives.) I’m still friends with the girl who would come to my house after preschool till her mom got off work when we were three. (We also took ballet together until we were in middle school.) I’m still friends with my clan from high school. I’m still friends with my crew from college. And I have made so many friends in this New York part of my life, too, both within the publishing industry and outside of it. And when I say I’m friends with all of these people, I mean really friends, not just casual acquaintances who still keep in touch occasionally. They are my people; the ones who have been beside me in both the worst and best times of my life; the ones who I will stand beside through anything that happens to them. No matter what. Because once people matter to me, they matter forever. I get attached, and I’m incredibly loyal, and I can’t ever stop caring about people. So my friends are stuck with me. I think they’re okay with that.

But that’s not really what the prompt asks. It asks specifically about this year. And in this year, I have been constantly blown away by how we all can change and grow and yet stay connected and never lose ourselves.

Suddenly, I’ve hit the time in my life when my friends are getting married and having babies. Three of four of my high school girls have all had children in the past year and a half. How odd to be the parents when we all hang out rather than the kids! Everything has changed . . . and yet nothing has changed either. We’re all still the same girls we were at sixteen hanging out in our own parents’ basements, watching scary movies and over-analyzing the boys we had crushes on.

Sadly, I don't have any high school pictures of us scanned (yet), but this one's a few years old. It'll have to do.

And one of my best friends from college got married over the summer, which meant I got to see a big bunch of my college people all at once. Again, so much has changed, and yet, we’re all just as comfortable and ridiculous with each other as we always were. It was like no time at all had passed in the nine years since we all saw each other every day. And this new guy, whom my friend loves and who loves her just as much as we all do, was instantly part of the circle from the very first moment we all met him.

It makes me laugh every time.

These are just two call-outs of so many I could choose from. I hope that every single one of my friends knows how important they have been to me in 2010 and how much they make me look forward to 2011.

So. Now you know why I’m always saying that I love books with strong friendships in them, too.

Sure, now, that seems like a breeze, after having written a 50-page thesis in college and writing editorial letters that are sometimes more than five pages. But back then, it was an intimidating thought.

But want to know a secret? I loved every single minute of those classes. Both remain two of the most challenging classes I’ve ever taken, for the level I was at then. The best kind of challenging–the kind that made me realize I could think and talk about the books I read. Largely because I had two pretty amazing teachers.

I had a lot of great English and literature teachers all through grade school, high school, and college. All of them are part of the reason I discovered that being an editor of children’s books is what I love and helped me to get where I am now, actually doing it. Mrs. Deeter in eighth grade drilled correct grammar into us, and it’s still helping me every day. Mrs. Higgins in the seventh grade made sure we were all read at least one book of literary merit per marking period and wrote a report on it. (I read a lot more than that. But somehow eluded Up a Road Slowly, which every other girl in the class ended up reading at some point. Someday I’m going to sit down with that one.) In college, Judy Gill taught me how to talk to other people about their writing, and also made sure I wrote with confidence in my own opinions–no wishy-washy writing got past her. Carol Ann Johnston and Wendy Moffat taught me how to make a firm argument, and how to poke holes in one that was flabby.

But Mrs. Gridley (who taught me English both freshman and sophomore year, as well as Essay Writing) was the very first teacher who made me realize that this reading and writing stuff was something that I’m good at. The very first book we read in Essay Writing was The Great Gatsby. We spent a few weeks reading and talking about it, and then it was time to write our first essay. Mine was about the symbolism of the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg. A few days after we handed them in, I was walking down the hall between classes with one of my friends, and I heard Mrs. Gridley say from right behind us, “Who knew Martha Mihalick had such a strong voice!” She’d read my essay, either the night before or earlier that day. (It’s probably key to know that I was very shy and quiet in high school.) And she thought it was good.

That moment has stuck with me ever since. I’d never had anyone tell me outright that my opinions about what I read were well-thought-out and that they mattered. In college, while I was writing a paper, I would hear her in my head, and sometimes I even still do.

And Miss Sarosi taught the dreaded honors English that year (and taught me for AP English the next year). What made that class (well, both that and AP) so hard was that junior year was the year we had to start thinking about literature for ourselves. Miss Sarosi didn’t spoon feed us what the symbolism, allusions, themes, etc, were. We had to use our brains and come up with them on our own. And I always felt that whatever it was we came up with, those interpretations were valid…as long as we could back them up. (You see why having Essay Writing in tandem with this class worked so well.) That class made me feel like I was an adult when it came to reading and writing. Miss Sarosi pushed me to be the best reader I could be.

I guess what all of this is to say, simply, is that a good teacher is invaluable, and can shape who you become. Having teachers who believed in me is something that I’m thankful for every day.

For instance, you could go over to the Greenwillow blog for a short video from Chris Crutcher, who knows a thing or two about having books challenged in schools and libraries. You could follow the #speakloudly conversation on twitter or visit SpeakLoudly.org, where teachers, librarians, bloggers, and authors (including Greenwillow’s own David Macinnis Gill) are speaking out against censorhip. You can go to BannedBooksWeek.org to see a map of all the reported challenges in the US between 2007 and 2010.

And you can visit the amazing Leah Clifford’s blog for the reminder that everyone is allowed to Speak Loudly, even those we don’t necessarily agree with, and the also fantastic Veronica Roth’s blog for another thoughtful perspective.

What do I think about during Banned Books Week? I think about how lucky I am to have grown up in a house where reading was encouraged. No, more than encouraged. Both of my parents are readers, though we have pretty different tastes. So there was always room for reading in my home. Curled up on the couch, in my room, at the kitchen table, in the yard, in the car, at my grandparents’, on vacations, even while we waited to be seated when we went out to dinner. Every week, I got $5 after piano lessons in the mall music store and went directly to the Walden books to spend it.

And despite having two overprotective parents (Seriously. I’ve never had a broken bone–no, not even a finger or toe–or stitches, or anything.), I was always, always allowed to read whatever I wanted. Because my parents knew that books open up the world. And they knew that they were raising good kids who would ask them questions when they needed to. They knew that discussion was better than taking something away.

I have learned so much, throughout my life, from books that are frequently challenged. From A Wrinkle in Time, I learned that science is incredible and that family never lets you down; from Bridge to Terabithia, I saw how important imagination and friendship is, and one way to cope when a loved one is lost; from Of Mice and Men that you really do have to be careful if you don’t know your own strength and you’re holding something cuddly; from A Light in the Attic that I loved poetry; and so much more.

That’s what I want to celebrate during Banned Books Week: that every child, teenager, parent, librarian, and teacher can choose to read the books that speak to them, and that they want to speak about.

And that authors will have the freedom to keep writing the books that we all need.

First off, I’m participating this week in Write On Con, a FREE online conference that began today and ends Thursday. Today, the first vlog I ever did went up, featuring me, editor Molly O’Neill, and agent Holly Root. We busted some publishing myths. And looked longingly at cookies in front of us on the table. I was also a panelist in a live chat with agents Elana Roth and Kathleen Ortiz and publicist Paul Samuelson.

I also have been doing a lot of urban exploring this summer, largely because I have a Key to the City. And I blogged about that over on the Greenwillow blog last week, so you can read more about it and see lots of pictures there!

And I’ve been editing some things. Things that knock my socks off. Like maybe this and this. And some others that aren’t yet linkable, but just you wait and see!