Books read in 2012 by genre--Part I: middle grade of all kinds

I feel like I had a harder time finding books that really resonated with me this year--a lot of my favorite authors did not have books come out in 2012, and while there were probably a lot of books I would have liked, I might not have heard about them or had access to them. I reread a lot of books (and read some to my kids that I had read previously). But I found some I really liked, too. Not every book is for every reader, but I hope that with a little description, maybe some of these will find the right person.

MG contemporary

1. Sway, Amber Turner. This book has a bit of the flavor of Savvy, but with no magic. If for some reason you have moral objections to fictional magic, but you want a book that feels similar, this might be a good pick. About a girl on a road trip, trying to deal with her mother leaving the family, and her dad who wants to help her. And mysterious soap!
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Books read in 2012 by genre--Part II: YA contemporary, alternate history, historical, dystopia, and

YA contemporary

37. Ten Miles from Winnemucca, Thelma Hatch Wyss. Short book about a boy whose mother remarries, and while the parents are on their honeymoon, the new stepbrother chucks the boy’s stuff out the window. So the boy drives to a random canyon in Idaho and tries to make a go of it until he feels he can go back and take on the stepbrother.
38. Love Among the Walnuts, Jean Ferris, reread, to girls. “Realistic” in that there is no magic, but caricaturized to allow for humor and mystery elements. Funny; a good read-aloud.
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Books read in 2012 by genre--Part III: YA scifi, fantasy (various), horror, historical, mystery; NF,

YA scifi

69. A Long, Long Sleep, Anna Sheehan. The first book I finished this year, and really excellent. And also somewhat undefinable. It's a retelling of Sleeping Beauty--sort of. But it's not a fairytaleish sort of telling. Sixteen-year-old Rose Fitzroy wakes up from her stasis chamber after 62 years. It's not the first time she's been put under--but never for this long! For the first time, her parents aren't there, Xavier, the boy next door, isn't there...everyone she knew is long dead, and the world is a different place. Suddenly she's the heir (or ward, depending on who you ask) of Unicorps, her parents' worldwide--no, make that solar system wide--business. She's got to start a new school (again), try to figure out how to make friends (something she was never very good at), and deal with the permanent loss of Xavier, who was always there for her before. And oh yeah--there's this plastine robot out to assassinate her. Bren, the boy who found her in the dusty apartment building basement, and his family are trying to help her physically, but only gradually, with the help of a strange alien boy named Otto who's a friend of Bren's does she realize she needs help in other ways, too. Ways that make her deal with things in her past... Excellent worldbuilding with a very human story at its heart.
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