Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Made Us Cry

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

Top Ten Books That Made Us Cry
Amber's Picks:

I pretty much refuse to read books that I know will make me cry. So, I asked Kayla for help in completing this week's Top Ten.



1. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
(More specifically Gaiman's Newbery Medal acceptance speech for The Graveyard Book)
My copy of The Graveyard Book contains Gaiman's acceptance speech when he won the Newbery Medal. I think after reading The Graveyard Book, I was already becoming obsessed with Gaiman and just read the speech because I needed to read anything written by him and it was the closest thing. When I started tearing up reading A SPEECH, I decided that I would read anything Gaiman ever wrote. Period. If you ever get a chance to read this speech, do it. Also, if you like Gaiman or just speeches, check out his commencement speech for The University of the Arts. It's also pretty amazing.





2. If You Come Softly and Behind You by Jacqueline Woodson
These are companion novels about an interracial relationship. The story hit close to home as I am in an interracial relationship now. It's also a pretty powerful story about young love, loss and acceptance. I pretty much ugly cried then immediately hugged my boyfriend.

Armchair BEA 2013: Day Five

Design Credit: Nina @ Nina Reads
Keeping It Real

Today we're supposed to discuss how we "keep things real" on our blogs and how we keep people coming back for more. Honestly, I don't know how to answer that question. I haven't been a very good blogger over the past year, and nothing short of awesome sauce and loyalty have kept my readers coming back for more. Yes, there are occasional giveaways, but I don't think they are of such a magnitude that anyone would say "OMG, MOAR!!!"

I hope the small snatches of myself that I'm able to insert in my posts keep my readers interested in what I'm doing here on Bibliophilia, Please. I've cut down on blog tour obligations and filler posts quite a bit, and I hope to have more crazy coming straight out of my own brain for you guys. We shall see.

Children's/Young Adult Literature

I love children's literature, though I didn't stay with it long when I was a child myself. However, I do have a few favorites at my house that I would like to share, but I won't go through too much silly business of posting long love letters for them since you have many other posts to visit if you're an Armchair BEA participant.

Wheedle on the Needle by Stephen Cosgrove
A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
Zero the Hero by Joan Holub
Knuckleheads by Joan Holub (In fact, anything by her!)
When it comes to YA, I'm at a bit of a loss. There is so much quality work out there, I don't even know where to begin to name favorites. I can honestly say that I wish there had been a greater selection when I was the target audience's age. I went straight from picture books to Tolkien, Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey, Stephen King, and the like. I'm not complaining at all about my reading material because I loved it wholeheartedly, but it would have been nice to have characters to connect with that were going through some of my same teen issues. Yes, there was Lurlene McDaniel, but that wasn't really an option. Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine had some YA, but you just got watch your favorite characters die brutally. So, if you're a teen and reading this post, please take a moment to realize how lucky you are to have the genre. We adults are incredibly jealous, and this is why so many of us keep stealing your books.