See 2024’s reading wrap-up here.

LibraryThing, where I keep track of all my reading, offers a “year in review” feature, in which they helpfully identified my “top genre” as children’s books, and noted that the majority of the books I read this year were published in the last five years. They provide some fun stats too, like if you piled up all the books I read this year, they’d be taller than Stonehenge, but not as tall as Cleopatra’s Needle; I’d need almost four Billy bookcases from IKEA to hold them all; and they weigh as much as 53 adult badgers! (But would 53 badgers fit in 32 U-Haul boxes? Not without a fight, probably.)

Read in 2025 : 906. To be honest I’m not even sure how. Let’s break it down… there were 6 “started-didn’t-finish” and 13 “partially-read,” so that brings the total down to 887. There were also 527 picture books, so if you take those out we’re looking at 360, which is about a book a day, which feels…right. (Not that picture books don’t count – I’m not saying that at all – but it’s not the same time investment as a full-length novel or nonfiction book, even if you read it a few times.)

Partially read/started-didn’t-finish: 19

Total books read cover-to-cover in 2025: 887

See the category breakdowns below, with some sample titles for each. (For most categories, I focused on books I read in the last few months of 2025, because I did a “spring standouts” post and a “fall and summer standouts” post earlier this year.) Maybe a good goal for this year would be to do those monthly, or at least quarterly…

Picture books: 527

• Just in Case: Saving Seeds in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault by Megan Clendenan and Brittany Cicchese
• The Book of Candles by Laurel Snyder and Leanne Hatch
• Mama Car by Lucy Catchpole and Karen George
• A Quick Trip to the Store by Sam Wedelich
• While We Wait by Bee Johnson
• Billie Jean!: How Tennis Star Billie Jean King Changed Women’s Sports by Mara Rockliff and Elizabeth Baddeley
• A Knot Is Not A Tangle by Daniel Nayeri and Vesper Stamper

Early reader and chapter books: 27

• The Fire-Breathing Duckling by Frank Cammuso
• Dory Fantasmagory, Center of the Universe by Abby Hanlon
• Ella Josephine, Resident in Charge by Nina LaCour
• The Story of Gumluck and the Heroes by Adam Rex
• My Presentation Today Is About the Anaconda by Bibi Dumon Tak

Middle grade: 155

• Rebellion 1776 by Laurie Halse Anderson
• The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli by Karina Yan Glaser
• The Winter of the Dollhouse by Laura Amy Schlitz
• Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly
• A Glimmer of Change by Elle McNicoll
• A Scar Like A River by Lisa Graff

Young Adult: 29

• We Fell Apart by e. lockhart
• Verity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire by Don Martin

Graphic novels: 77 (overlap with other categories, obviously)

Let’s take a moment to celebrate that Sophie Escabasse, Meggie Ramm, and Dana Simpson all published new books this year (Witches of Brooklyn, Batcat, and Phoebe and Her Unicorn, respectively). Three cheers for series that continue to be good! (Although we are not wild about the cliffhanger-ish ending of Curse and Reverse…)

• How to Say Goodbye in Cuban by Daniel Miyares (MG)
• Into the Bewilderness by Gus Gordon (MG)
• Dan in Green Gables by Rey Terciero (YA)
• Open Borders by Bryan Caplan (adult NF)
• The Great Gatsby and Tuck Everlasting, adapted by K. Woodman-Maynard

Adult Fiction: 80, including “literary fiction,” fantasy, mystery, science fiction, and romance.

• The Rose Field by Philip Pullman
• Wreck by Catherine Newman
• Heart the Lover by Lily King
• The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman
• The Everlasting by Alix Harrow
• A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Adult nonfiction: 37

• Enshittification by Cory Doctorow
• Dinner with King Tut by Sam Kean
• Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration by Bryan Caplan
• The Art of Ramona Quimby by Anna Katz
• I Want to Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreitzman
• Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert
• The Heroine’s Journey by Gail Carriger
• What Goes With What by Julia Turshen (cookbook)
• Do I Know You? by Sadie Dingfelder
• Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green

Essays/short stories: 14

• We Had It Coming by Luke O’Neill
• No Straight Road Takes You There by Rebecca Solnit
• Nothing Compares to You by Sonya Huber et al

Audiobooks: 11ish

I say “ish” because there were a lot of books we read in print and audio, going back and forth depending on whether we were in the car, doing a puzzle, etc. We read/listened to the entire Penderwicks series by Jeanne Birdsall, and my daughter re-read many of her favorites as audiobooks (including all of Jaclyn Moriarty’s Bronte Mettlestone books and the entire Wings of Fire series). I read many fewer audiobooks this year than in the past, though, because I was listening to all seven seasons of the “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text” podcast by Vanessa Zoltan and Casper Ter Kuile. I haven’t done the math on how many hours that is, but…a lot.

Five-star reviews: 36

• Every Monday Mabel by Jashar Awan
• Hurricane by Jason Chin
• We Are the Wibbly! by Sarah Tagholm and Jane McGuinness
• Anything by Rebecca Stead and Gracey Zhang
• The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods by Mikey Please
• While We Wait by Bee Johnson
• The Poisoned King by Katherine Rundell
• The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater
• Swordheart by T. Kingfisher
• The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow
• Open Borders by Bryan Caplan

Re-reads: Still no good way to keep track of this, but there definitely were some! I know I re-read The Husbands by Holly Gramazio and Holes by Louis Sachar (for the first time since I was in elementary school!), as well as many many picture books.

WeNeedDiverseBooks: 244, or about 28%.

And once again, we’re just a few weeks away from the ALA Youth Media Awards (a.k.a. the kidlit Oscars). The Heavy Medal blog is in full swing with their Mock Newbery, and Calling Caldecott is spotlighting picture books with standout illustrations. And I’ve already read several excellent books this month, including Becky Chambers’ A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (sequel to A Psalm for the Wild-Built), which is set in a futuristic world I’d actually like to live in; the atmospheric The Forest of a Thousand Eyes by Frances Hardinge; the hilarious Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke; and Never Caught by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, which I’ve been meaning to read for years. What books did you love this year? What books are you looking forward to in 2026?