Top Ten Tuesday: The End

A little bit of searching, and I've discovered that my first Top Ten Tuesday post was over two years ago, in January of 2011. And after a hundred or so lists, I've done about all I can do with the concept. The Broke and the Bookish can afford to recycle old topics, having a whole group of contributors, but me... not so much. With many thanks to the B. & the B. for two years of spectacularly awesome meme, then, I'm bowing out.

From henceforth, for now, I'm going to step back to being a Monday-Wednesday-Friday blogger. Despite all the things I'd like to try on Tuesdays, I have a bigger need to finish revising some novels. But today you get one more list, though I'm not going to mess with numbers.

For my last Top Ten Tuesday, then, it seemed appropriate to pick my favorite story endings.

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It's hard to say why they're my favorites without giving spoilers, so pardon the vagueness. They range from the tender to the sublime, from bittersweet at best to shamelessly happy, and from the simply written to high poetry and prose. But all of them did for me what Tolkien famously believed to be a key function of the fairy tale—and I believe the same just as ardently, though not as famously—they gave me "a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief." I will forgive a book a multitude of wrongs if it pulls that off.

The list, then:

Dante's Paradiso

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Emma and Persuasion

Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse

Stephenie Meyer's The Host

L.M. Montgomery's Anne of the Island, Rilla of Ingleside, The Blue Castle, and Mistress Pat

Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead and Ender's Shadow

George MacDonald's Lilith

Shannon Hale's Princess Academy

C.S. Lewis' The Horse and His Boy and That Hideous Strength and Till We Have Faces

John Green's Looking for Alaska

Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess

Charles Dickens' The Christmas Carol

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus

John Grisham's The Testament

Louisa May Alcott's Little Women

Gene Stratton Porter's A Girl of the Limberlost

Catherine Marshall's Christy

Kate Dicamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie

So many beautiful last pages. The memories keep putting massive lumps in my throat.

What are your favorite story endings?

Top Ten Tuesday: Fictional Pets

Technically, today's topic is "Favorite books I read before I was a blogger." For that, however, all I have to do is refer you to this list. I'd not read all fifty of those books before ever becoming a blogger, but you can find the top ten in the top thirteen or so.

On account of which, I'm choosing my own topic today. This one is dedicated to my sister Beth, who has been asking for it for probably a year.

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There are two difficulties with this topic: first, that some of the best animals in fiction are not pets. The horses Bree and Hwin would be so offended at being called pets that I almost feel like I should include Shasta and Aravis on the list. There's a reason that book is called The Horse and His Boy.

Second, that I'm almost guaranteed to forget some and later have to smack my forehead in the comments box.

1. Dog Monday from L.M. Montgomery's Rilla of Ingleside. For waiting out World War I at the station, watching every incoming train for his beloved soldier. Less honorable but still enjoyable mention goes to the cat Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde.

2. Crookshanks from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter stories. With honorable mentions to Hedwig and Pigwidgeon, both of whom I loved—but the part-cat part-kneazle Crookshanks was exceptionally smart and helpful, especially when it came to figuring out whether dogs and rats were really what they seemed to be.

3. Rowdy from Wilson Rawls' Summer of the Monkeys. The quintessential good dog—a patient floppy-eared hound, prone to hiding under the porch when frightened but always up for an adventure with Jay Berry Lee.

4. Rusty and Joseph and the Sarah-cat from L.M. Montgomery's Anne of the Island. Two scrappy misfits and a queenly creature, all feline, all learning to keep house together.

5. The dog Wrolf from Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse... though I suspect Wrolf would not appreciate being called a pet, either, and I probably ought to stick with Zachariah the cat or Serena the hare.

6. McGinty from L.M. Montgomery's Pat books. Montgomery apparently had a soft spot for loyal-hearted little dogs. As do I.

7. The merrel from Robin McKinley's Spindle's End. For being a good conversationalist and ultimately protecting Rosie in a crucial way. There are a lot of good pets in that book, too—horses and dogs and cats and mice and even, weirdly enough, a spider.

8. Old Dan and Little Ann from Wilson Rawls' Where the Red Fern Grows. I barely remember this book, which is surprising when I consider how many times I read it in sixth grade, but I do remember there being a great deal of eternal love and loyalty between these two hound-dogs.

9. Jack the bulldog from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books. Another quintessential good dog, and possibly not entirely fictional.

10. Pongo and Missis from Dodie Smith's 101 Dalmatians. Technically, they wouldn't want to be called pets either, but they can argue that with the Dearlys on their own time. Also worthy of mention are Perdita, several of the animal helpers who aided Pongo and Missis on the search for the puppies, and some of the puppies themselves.

Honorable mentions to Pilot from Jane Eyre, Jok the gander from The Goose Girl, the milk carton from China Mieville's Un Lun Dun, annoying little Gwin the marten from Inkheart and sequels, and the three-legged horse from The Hero and the Crown.

Maia insists upon being mentioned as well, having refused to listen to my explanation about this being a matter of reality versus fiction. I don't think she believes there's a difference.

Back to the post... apparently Montgomery writes more about pets than most authors, though McKinley does well, too. Lewis gave major story roles to a lot of animals who were not pets, including making one of them Narnia's God. For myself, well—no spoilers allowed for not-yet-published works, so I'll just say this: I guarantee that if I had written the Divine Comedy, there would have been some goodly birds and beasts in Paradise.

All right, what pets have I overlooked?

Top Ten Tuesday: Fictional Ice Cream Boys

Not long before Lou and I had our first chat over coffee, one of my girlfriends spoke of having a mental list of what she called "ice cream boys"—that is, the boys to whom she'd say yes if any of them asked her out to ice cream. I later journaled something like, "Lou is on my list of ice cream boys—Lou just about is my list of ice cream boys." Luckily for me, he asked me out.

That explains the post title. Technically, the topic is "characters I would crush on if I were also a fictional character," which made me feel rather silly since I'm much too married to be admitting to bursts of romantic feeling toward other boys. I know these are imaginary boys, but still.

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But when it comes to the imaginary boys an imaginary single Jenna would go on an ice cream date with, all of them have some great qualities, and some resemble my own dear man in important ways... so, very well. We'll pretend I'm an unattached fictional character for the purposes of one blog post. I suppose we'll have to pretend all these men are unattached, too.

Here's my self-imposed rule: one ice cream boy per author, else this might be an Austenfest. And I'm ruling out Rand al'Thor. I loved him, but I would not share him.

#10: Hilary 'Jingle' Gordon (Pat of Silver Bush, L.M. Montgomery)
Why: Sensitive, lightly built, sweet, hardworking dreamer
He loves me/he loves me not: Quite possibly. He likes domestic girls, especially brunette ones who like dogs.
Choice of ice cream: Old-fashioned homemade vanilla with wild strawberries.

#9: Ian O'Shea (The Host, Stephenie Meyer)
Why: Protective, thoughtful, good, able to see beyond appearances
He loves me/he loves me not: He likes the sweet ones, so I might have a chance.
Choice of ice cream: Big bowl of chocolate, please.

#8: Prince Char (Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine)
Why: Softhearted, has a good sense of humor, does the right thing
He loves me/he loves me not: Doesn't know I exist. He likes eye-catching and playful.
Choice of ice cream: Mint chocolate chip. It's fun.

#7: Charles Bingley (Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen)
Why: Generous, good-natured, unassuming and disarming
He loves me/he loves me not: I'm one of the girls he likes enough to dance with a few times.
Choice of ice cream: Goo goo cluster. The name is so funny that he's got to know what it tastes like.

#6: Alexei Karamazov (The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky)
Why: Gentle, thoughtful, loyal, pure of heart
He loves me/he loves me not: Yes, but he still thinks he might need to be a monk.
Choice of ice cream: He's not picky—he'll have whatever I'm having.

#5: Harry Potter (The Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling)
Why: Steady, introspective, emotional, brave, self-sacrificial, honestly just plain likable
He loves me/he loves me not: "The really tall, shy girl with the yellow buck teeth? I thought she liked Ron."
Choice of ice cream: Do they have treacle tarts? He'll have one of those.

#4: Calvin O'Keefe (The Time quintet, Madeleine L'Engle)
Why: Tall, outwardly casual but inwardly noble, exceptionally smart, perceptive and sincere
He loves me/he loves me not: He might be one of the few guys who could've liked me in my awkward teenage phase.
Choice of ice cream: Whatever's in the freezer. If you've got multiple kinds, he'll try some of everything.

#3: Edmund Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis)
Why: Knows himself and his own weakness, humble, wise, quietly brave and noble
He loves me/he loves me not: If we made it as far as ice cream, there's a very good chance we'd hit it off.
Choice of ice cream: Chocolate swirl. He used to like super-sweet, fruity stuff, but some sort of past experience soured him on that kind of thing.

#2: Mortimer Folchart (The Inkworld trilogy, Cornelia Funke)
Why: Bookish, quiet, steady, protective, good dad material, has gentle working hands
He loves me/he loves me not: I might have a chance at a date if I bumped into him in the library carrying a dozen books.
Choice of ice cream: Great big hot fudge sundae with lots of toppings.

#1: Ender Wiggin (The Ender books, Orson Scott Card)
Why: Empathetic, strong, humble, does what needs doing, perceptive, pure of heart
He loves me/he loves me not: He's kind and attentive, but no, he wouldn't fall for me.
Choice of ice cream: Not important. He'll order the first thing off the menu.

All right, don't make me embarrass myself by myself. What fictional characters would be on your list of ice cream boys or girls?

Five Things: A Replay

This week's top ten topic,

Top Ten Books I HAD To Buy...But Are Still Sitting On My Shelf Unread

...is one I've already done.

By my count, I've got another five or six of these Top Ten Tuesdays that aren't more or less repetitive. After that, I'm going to have to find something else to do with Tuesdays around here. I have one idea I like very much, but to really do it up well probably means sketching, which I haven't done in years.

For today, Christie has tagged me in one of those say-five-interesting-things-about-yourself memes. I love those so much that, upon research, I discover I've already done some version of this at least four times on this blog. I suppose that makes me a narcissist. It would also seem that I have now told ALL THE SECRETS.*

But I still like to visit the warmer lands.

Like Christie, though, many of you are comparatively new friends and haven't seen those old posts. Since hardly any of you were around in January of 2007, when I posted the first, I'll replay and expand upon that one. Five things you may not have known about me, then:

1. I have been chased by a headless snapping turtle.

And stepped on a snake thinking it was a garden hose... and, with my family, been pursued by a water moccasin. And we won't even talk about alligators. There are reasons I don't live anywhere near the tropics now. The turtle, anyway, upon its decapitation at the hands of my uncle, took off like a beheaded chicken and came straight after my sister and me. Beth was a toddler and I wasn't much older, so you can imagine the screams and the panic as the dead reptile followed us—presumably unintentionally—in a circle around the yard.

2. I have never conquered my irrational childhood fear of swimming pool drains.

Hot tub jets and bathtub drains also give me the willies. In the last year or two, I read an article explaining how swimming pools work, hoping to get over the silliness. But the article claimed that the drains are left open all the time, which I hadn't known before, and I now have very little interest in ever going swimming again.

3. The author’s genes kicked in early for me. When I was about five or six, I used to do my own narration in third person, for instance: “She walked down the stairs and turned on the light.”

Nerd. The word is nerd. My friend Bradley once pointed that out. "All you ever say is she, she, she," he complained, which embarrassed me terribly, as he was eight years old and adorable. "No, it's not all I ever say," I said. Unfortunately for me, in inspiring his original comment, I had given him a ready example to quote back to me.

4. Instead of taking a teddy bear to bed with me as a little girl, I used to take my Breyer horses.

That might not be the main reason that they always had broken legs, but it probably contributed.

5. The first two songs I ever wrote were both written solely because someone else I knew had written a song, and I figured “What the heck—if they can do it, so can I.”

And I am way too much of a narcissist to ever sing those terrifically bad songs in public. Ever.

Now, I'd love it if you'd all tell me five interesting things about yourself in the comments. Or post on your own blog and link back so I can read it. :D

* No, I haven't. Not all. But it would require some serious and time-consuming excavations of the soul to come up with interesting factoids that you haven't heard and that I'm willing to share.

Tuesday and a Little Bit about Books

No, the daffodils aren't from my garden.
Lou got them for me for my birthday.
No need to wish me many happy returns—
that was weeks ago. I just like the picture. :)

This week's Top Ten Tuesday: Books on my spring TBR list. Between last week's series-I-need-to-start list and January's books-to-read-this-year list, I feel as if I've already more or less filled this out.

If you want to know the specifics of the moment, however, I've got Orson Scott Card's Shadow of the Giant and Shadow Puppets sitting within reach. I'm in the middle of re-reading C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet, I'm planning on tracking down Marissa Meyer's Cinder, and I played hooky from my to-do list this morning to finish Stephanie Perkins' Anna and the French Kiss, partly because I couldn't put it down and partly because I really needed something to review for tomorrow.

Apart from that, I have a document full of intriguing and/or recommended titles and am more likely to pick based on momentary mood than on plan, especially since I've got two books to hopefully finish revisions on by summer.

Maia couldn't care less what I read
as long as I leave room on my lap for a cat.

I'd forgotten that I intended to read War and Peace this year. That's going to charge me more time than I can likely pay until autumn... but we'll see.

What's on your to-read list for spring?

UPDATE: I've closed comments on this post for now. It's getting heavily spammed for reasons unbeknownst to me. My apologies to those of you with anything legitimate to say. :)

Top Ten Tuesday: Series I'd Like to Try Out

Series tend to be hard on the reader, thanks to the necessary but painful delay between releases, which is often exacerbated by an authorial penchant for mean cliffhangers. Because the extended page count allows for development of a world and characters that standalone novels rarely match, however, I do love a good series when I can find it.

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I'm always, therefore, questing after something to shelve in the high honors section with Narnia and The Wheel of Time and Harry Potter. Here are some of the next few I've considered trying.

1. The Anna-Lola-Isla series by Stephanie Perkins. I've had thoughts of picking up Anna and the French Kiss for well over a year now, and have been stuck between the appeal—Paris! Quirky heroine! Probable good writing!—and a hesitation based on having had very mixed experiences with what reviewers and marketers label as 'cute, light romances' (frequent translation: "meh") and 'sexy heroes' (usual translation: "described with a bald and uncompelling fixation on pectoral muscles.") The book looks like fun, though. I'll read it. If I like it, maybe I'll try Lola and the Boy Next Door.

2. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. Arabella has been trying to convince me to read these for months, and I've delayed because cyborgs and dystopians generally don't interest me. Good worldbuilding and characters do, however, as do fairy tale retellings—so on the hope of all that, I mean to give Cinder a read.

3. The Shannara books by Terry Brooks. There's nothing I love more than a good epic fantasy, and this is one all fantasy fans are supposed to have read, so it's long past time I give Brooks his due.

4. The Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. I appreciated his finish of The Wheel of Time; now I'd like to see what he does with his own stories.

5. The Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. People keep telling me it's great.

6. The Fair Godmother books by Janette Rallison. I never seem to tire of Cinderella retellings.

7. The Princess Diaries books by Meg Cabot. I loved the (first) movie so much that I've been afraid to read the books it was adapted from. Yes, I know that's heresy. At any rate, I ought to track down the original Mia Thermopolis and read her tale.

8. The Books of Pellinor by Allison Croggon. This one's been on my definitely-to-read list for a couple of years. I need to reference my to-read list more often when hunting out books, that's all.

9. The series beginning with Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi. I hear it has a gentle protagonist, which is one of my favorite things to find.

10. The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper. A series with a Potteresque storyline, but published about thirty years before Harry. It's one I've been meaning to read since forever, but see Pellinor.

What have I missed? And what series are you interested in picking up?

Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I'd Put on My Auto-Buy List

There being a great number of authors in the world, and there being an unfortunate number of limits on reading time in any single life, the idea of an auto-buy list strikes me as a bit overwhelming. There probably aren't ten living authors I'd dare promise to read everything they write, especially if they're prolific. Which raises the question: Can we include authors who have died?

I'm going to say yes, just to make my life easier.

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Unfortunately, my three favorite authors—G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and Orson Scott Card—have all got loads of books I've yet to read. It seems disingenuous to pledge to buy everything they write when I've not made it through half their respective oeuvres. (But I do have two of Card's Bean books on deck, waiting only till I've re-read Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet. So, there's that.)

And then there's J.K. Rowling. Crazy as I am about Harry Potter, I've not read The Casual Vacancy. Nor do I think I'm likely to.

Here, however, are a few authors whose work I've read all (or nearly all) of and liked well enough to at least seriously consider anything they wrote in future.

1. Jane Austen. Absolutely. I'd just go wild for another of her sweet romances set amid intimate social comedies.

2. Shannon Hale. I've not read her Midnight in Austenland or the graphic novels. Yet. But I think I've read everything else, and I'm ever hoping for more of her bright, humorous storytelling and textured worlds.

3. Stephenie Meyer. Though I'm afraid of sequels to the fantastic The Host, which ended in a very good place. Her outstanding concepts and emotionally resonant characters really get at me; I'm never through with a Meyer book till I've read it five times.

4. Ally Condie, though she has some earlier works I've not read. Anyone who can make me love a dystopian series has got something worth searching out. The quiet mood of her prose and her Cassia's artistic, contemplative nature sold me on the Matched series and interested me in anything else she has to say.

5. L.M. Montgomery. I've still got a couple of her lesser-known novels to track down, but who wouldn't take more of the creator who wrote Anne, Emily, Pat, and Valancy? Not to mention Gilbert, Teddy, Jingle, and Barney? I'd love to hear more from her Prince Edward Island world.

6. Laura Ingalls Wilder. I adored all her prairie tales as a kid. More Ingalls family stories would just make my year.

...and now I'm running out of ideas. There are so few people of whom I can truthfully say I've read anywhere near all their work. It's not true of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky; it's not true of Cornelia Funke or Elizabeth Goudge. It's not true of George MacDonald or Rick Riordan or Evelyn Waugh or Frances Hodgson Burnett. Until it is, I think I'm stuck with a short list.

Who would you put on your own auto-buy list?

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Characters in MG/YA High Fantasy

...because I love it, and because there should be much more of it in the world.

By middle grade and young adult, I'm ruling out The Lord of the Rings, even though it's sometimes shelved in with the kidlit. I love Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Galadriel, Eowyn, and the Legolas/Gimli friendship, if you're wondering.

By high fantasy, I'm ruling out anything in which a modern-day London or New York (etc.) is referenced, which includes Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. If you've ever spent ten minutes on this blog, you may know I adore pretty much everyone in HP but the villains—heck, I even have a soft spot for the Malfoys by the end. As for Percy, I love him and Annabeth and Tyson and Clarice and... pretty much everyone but Kronos and the monsters. I even loved Luke. So, yeah.

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My own arbitrary additional rules: limit one entry per book and two per author, which should keep Shannon Hale's characters from dominating the list. Peder, Enna, Finn, Rin, Razo, Britta, Dashti and Tegus, don't go feeling unloved.

1. Miri Larendaughter (Princess Academy and Palace of Stone, Shannon Hale). Perky, quick-witted, generous, brave, and tenderhearted, Miri is an honest-to-goodness heroine. Hard not to love.

2. Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee (The Goose Girl, Shannon Hale). Shy and self-deprecating but gracious and persevering, Ani-called-Isi has an inner strength that is everything I want to be. Also, it's a lot of fun to write out her full name.

3. Rosie (Spindle's End, Robin McKinley). I'll spare you her full name. Her boyish, trouser-wearing, animal-loving, handicraft-hating personality brought my own teenage self back to me with a vengeance. Props to McKinley for allowing her to be feminine and vulnerable despite her toughness and masculine mannerisms. Review of the book coming soon.

4. Eilonwy or Fflewddur Fflam (The Chronicles of Prydain, Lloyd Alexander). I couldn't pick. Eilonwy is bossy and loyal and interesting; Fflewddur is hilarious. Honorable mention to Fflewddur's harp.

5. Prince Char (Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine). I thoroughly enjoyed Ella, but I loved Char. He's good-natured and tenderhearted and not too confident, and has a very responsive sense of humor and play. Rather a darling young man.

6. Castle Glower (Tuesdays at the Castle, Jessica Day George). I'm also rather fond of Celie. The castle, however, had so much personality in its own right that it deserves the mention here. There's a lot of forceful love and humor packed into that magical work of architecture.

7. Sophie Hatter (Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones). I'm bending my rules with this mention, since Sophie does get a brief excursion to England, but since her world exists on its own without reference to ours, I'll give it a pass. As a fellow eldest child, I sympathized with Sophie, and I very much admired her ability to grit through being cursed and having to put up with Howl.

8. Adele and Eleda (The Truth Teller's Tale, Sharon Shinn). They're not so easily separated. I had more natural sympathy for quiet Adele, but I loved Eleda's honesty.

9. Jena and her frog (Wildwood Dancing, Juliet Marillier). This is set in Romania, so it's another rulebender, but it doesn't really touch the modern Western world. I'm not sure which I liked more—Jena's devoted bravery, or the frog's devoted loyalty. Their friendship was best of all.

10. Loveday Minette (The Little White Horse, Elizabeth Goudge). This one touches London of yesteryear, so it's also borderline. Also, I might love Maria best and Robin after, and Old Parson is wonderful, as is Wrolf—but I've chosen Loveday because, besides her having a sweet name, she's motherly and womanly and repentant of her past wrongs. She's a lot of the reason that Maria and Robin have the goodness and resources to right the wrongs of Maria's ancestor.

Which are your favorites from middle grade and young adult high fantasy?

Top Ten Tuesday: Romances Again

There's only one problem with this excellent topic: I've listed my picks before. And they haven't really changed. Amy and Laurie? Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth? Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester? Does it get better?

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Probably not. I could, however, go on listing for a very long time. Twenty. Fifty. A hundred. For today, we'll stick with twenty.

11. Kitty and Levin from Lev Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. That scene where they're talking to each other in first letters is just. So. Cute.

12. Ian and Wanderer from Stephenie Meyer's The Host. A particularly sweet and engaging love story, with a fair amount of depth to it and too many adorable moments to choose from.

13. Percy and Annabeth from Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series. I never would have thought a couple in a humorous middle grade boy story could be so compelling.

14. Barney and Valancy from L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle. I'm always faintly creeped out by the images of Ryan Gosling with "Hey, girl" stamped across them—maybe because I don't know the context—but Barney's "Oh, girl..." gets at my heart every time.

15. Perrin and Faile from Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time. While Mat and Tuon form a more unique and interesting pairing, and I grew to sympathize with the Rand/Min passion (if not their morals), the love between Perrin and Faile was especially satisfying.

16. Harry and Ginny from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. They could laugh together. I was pulling for them from book two.

17. Ron and Hermione from the same. Her mercury and his sulphur were an explosive combination. I was pulling for them from the middle of book one. :)

18. Sophie and Howl from Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle. In the book—I've yet to see the Miyazaki adaptation—this is actually not a particularly sweet romance. It is, however, adorable.

19. Ella and Char from Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted. They slid down banisters together and wrote the cutest letters to each other. I just loved them.

20. Shasta/Cor and Aravis from C.S. Lewis' The Horse and His Boy. Fighting all the time may not be the best way to fall in love in real life, but it makes great fiction. It's mostly foreshadowed, as they're children in the story, but the beginner's chemistry is all there.

Honorable mention to Pat and Jingle from L.M. Montgomery's Pat of Silver Bush and Mistress Pat; they would certainly have made this list had Pat not taken so desperately long to get her heart around the truth.

Who else should we name?

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Bookish Memories

This topic purports to be a challenge, what with thirty-one years of intensive reading to think back through. But I'll do my best.

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Not necessarily in order:

1. The Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows release party. Rachael, Ben, Brenna and I went together, and we were Luna, Lupin, Tonks, and McGonagall respectively. It was quite the emotional buzz. As was staying up the rest of the night reading the book.

2. Reading the entire Chronicles of Narnia on the family moving drive from Florida to Montana when I was seven. All except for the last half of The Last Battle, anyway. I ran out of road and had to finish in Missoula.

3. Reading books aloud with my family when I was a kid. Wilson Rawls' Summer of the Monkeys was a favorite, as were George MacDonald's Wee Sir Gibbie of the Highlands and Alec Forbes of Howglen.

4. Always having a book in my desk for study hall during middle school (two of my three public school years). I can't count the number of times I read Johanna Spyri's Heidi, or Rawls' Where the Red Fern Grows, or Dodie Smith's 101 Dalmatians.

5. When I went back to being homeschooled: bribing myself to do my math work by allowing myself to read a chapter of a novel after every ten sums. The great thing about being homeschooled is that you can get away with that in school.

6. This was probably kind of dangerous, but I used to take a book and sit in a corner of the horse pasture just to be near my horses while reading. On a related note, this Super Bowl commercial made me cry horribly. I miss Lovely.

7. The YA blogger meetup at ALA a couple of weeks ago. I met Lenore Applehans (Level 2), Kristen Kittscher (A Wig in the Window), Cat Patrick (Forgotten, Revived), two of the editors from Flux Books, Sarah Woodard of Sarah's Random Musings, Jasmine Rose of A Room with Books, Benji Kenworthy of The Non-Reluctant Reader, Rachel Patrick of Beauty and the Bookshelf, Amy Tintera (Reboot), Gabrielle Prendergast (Wicket Season, Audacious, Capricious), and half-met agent Jill Corcoran.

8. Writing songs about Harry Potter and The Wheel of Time. And performing said songs for WWU and Vancouver Potter fans.

9. Reviewing books on this blog. Does it count as a memory if I still do it?

10. Being part of my Catholic girls' book club. This is also still going on, but every meeting seems to be a good memory. Which reminds me, I haven't read this month's book yet...

What are some of your favorite bookish memories?

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Frustrating Characters in Fiction

I suspect most of us are thinking about the same person. Without further ado, then.

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1. Dolores Umbridge (The Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling). She dresses in pink; she collects plates with pictures of kittens on them; she never speaks but in a soft, girlish, over-polite voice; and she made Harry carve the words "I must not tell lies" into his own flesh—because he refused to deny the truth. While she didn't kill as many people as Voldemort, she was much more maddening. With Voldemort, at least you knew what you were getting. (AK'd.) Umbridge was a cold-blooded, legalistic, cheaply feminine sadist.

Right, so she's going to be hard to top. Here are a few others, though.

2. Tom Sawyer (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain.) I don't remember much of Tom from the book bearing his own name, but he made me want to throw things at the end of Huck Finn's. The Duke and the Dauphin also deserve mention here, but they were passive irritations who bored me to the point of angst. Tom and his calculating mischief were active sources of distress.

3. Lucinda (Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine). Prone to giving magical gifts that sound nice but carry serious consequences, Lucinda spends most of the tale blissfully blind to the down side of her largesse. Her eventual shame almost made me leave her off the list, but it doesn't change what she did to those giants.

4. John and Fanny Dashwood, Lucy Steele, and Mrs. Ferrars (Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen). I couldn't pick. Fanny is mean-spirited and John is an idiot. Lucy is manipulative. Mrs. Ferrars is an unfortunate combination of arrogant, small-minded, and heartless. Lucy plays the most direct role, but they all compete to be the most unfeeling.

I would put Pride & Prejudice's Mr. Collins on here, too, if he weren't so comparatively powerless and stupid as to be more comical than anything.

5. Mrs. Norris (Mansfield Park, Jane Austen). Proof positive that favoritism is a bad idea.

6. Vronsky (Anna Karenina, Lev Tolstoy). For all that her husband wasn't appealing either, Anna's adultery might have been a touch more emotionally comprehensible if this guy had had even one redeeming quality. I hope he was handsome, because he struck me as neither good-natured nor good-hearted nor intelligent nor even really manly. Maybe riding steeplechasers made him look manly, but for him, even that was a form of indolence.

7. Matrim Cauthon and Fortuona Athaem Kore Paendrag, whenever they're apart (The Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson). Without Tuon, Mat's a selfish skirt-chaser. Without Mat, Tuon is a dispassionate ruler with no shame about her penchant for making collared pets out of Aes Sedai. Also worth mentioning are all the Whitecloaks, the Sea Folk at any bargaining table, and Berelain for her attempts to break up Perrin and Faile.

8. Denethor (The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien). The middle of a world war is a really lousy time to go crazy and nearly kill your own rather important son. Grima/Wormtongue also deserves the demerit here.

9. The Thénardiers and Javert (Les Misérables, Victor Hugo). In the musical, the Thénardiers are sometimes comic and Javert is sometimes sympathetic. Not quite so much in the book—at least, not to my memory. The former are so cruel in their selfishness, and the latter so relentless in his legalism, that I didn't like being around them at all.

10. Erlend Nikulaussøn (Kristin Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset). I have never detested a protagonist's love interest like I detested Erlend. The man was selfish and thoughtless and had no self-control. I lost much of my sympathy for Kristin when she fell in love with him, which meant that I spent half the book frustrated with her, too.

Not the most cheerful topic, but perhaps a rather cathartic one. I'm sort of shocked at how many judgmental statements I just made, truthfulness notwithstanding. :)

Which characters do you find most frustrating?

Unsettling Wonder Release and Top Ten Tuesday

First, big news: the inaugural issue of Unsettling Wonder is out, themed around the concept of Wonder Voyages! There are some lovely stories in there. I know that for a fact; I'm the associate fiction editor.

From the introduction:

In offering you these stories, we hope that they guide you on a voyage of imagination—if not from island to island in goatskin boats, then from story to story, to new lands discovered by story. I do not promise they will change you. But you will, I hope, discover something new, even indescribable.

Print and digital editions are available. I'm looking forward to my own copy coming in the mail!

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Now, back to scheduled programming: the top ten settings I'd like to see more of in fiction. This is a tough one for me because I favor high fantasy, where the two important rules for setting are: 1) use your imagination, and 2) use the heck out of it.  I'll try to come up with a list nonetheless. It just might be abstract.

1. The Epic Landscape. Scenery expansive and varied enough to take in whole cultures and multiple plot lines and enormous series. Think Tolkien's work, or Jordan's—from the flowers and treehouses of Lothlorien to the mines of Moria, from the river-island of Tar Valon to the plains and walled cities of the Borderlands. I just finished the Wheel of Time, and I need another large-scale saga with a fascinating world.

2. The Beautiful Wonderland. Magical worlds with an emphasis on the lovely. Shannon Hale's teen heroines live in such places, and Maria Merryweather enters the exquisite Silverydew in The Little White Horse. Lewis' Narnia is glorious, and even Montgomery's handling of setting, notably Lake Mistawis (The Blue Castle), belongs fairly in this category. The land traveled by the boy in Paolo Coelho's The Alchemist is yet another, as is Cornelia Funke's Inkworld.

3. The Ambiguous Place in Time. This is the world that may or may not be on Planet Earth; it's not specifically tied to any location in the universe or any time period. Sharon Shinn's Auburn is an example of this, as is the world in The Wheel of Time. "In one age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist...."

4. The Unknown Planet. Here's where my taste for sci-fi drops into the mix. Someplace in the unexplored heavens, unfamiliar peoples work unfamiliar lands—on Lewis' Perelandra, for instance, or Card's Lusitania (Speaker for the Dead). This is a great way to set up a world with unique rules and features.

5. The Undersea Paradise. I am on a quest for a good mermaid book. It needs to have strong, sensory worldbuilding, lovable characters, and a meaningful concept, which combination seems unreasonably hard to find in the little world of mermaid fiction. Granted, I haven't read the entirety of said world yet.

6. The Far Side of the Portal. This is a common urban fantasy concept, but is not often done to my taste, mainly because most writers are light worldbuilders by my standards. The portal concept is as follows: step into a wardrobe in the English countryside, and voila! There's a world through there. Platform 9 3/4 is likewise a perfect example.

7. The Artists' Guild. I'm a writer and musician, and I have dabbled in both drawing and dance—and I love to see the arts and artistic gatherings in novels. Love, love, love. Artists have a way of turning their associations and spaces into settings with distinctive personalities. Sometimes these form the primary setting, as in Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus. Other times, they're small aspects of the larger world but important to the story, like the musicians' nightclub in Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind. Either way, this is one of my favorite things to find in a tale.

It's likely that I could go on, but it might take more hours than I've got to give. What settings would you like to see more of in fiction?

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Books I Read in 2012

Yes, it's old news, but this week's topic—Top Ten 2013 Debuts I'm Looking Forward To—is one I did a broader version of just a few weeks back and only came up with three. Will I read more debuts than that? I certainly hope so. It just takes me some time to sort through the internet buzz for the ones I'm actually interested in. Especially since the internet buzz usually focuses on trends like paranormals and dystopians, and I'm more interested in the epic fantasy and non-apocalyptic science fiction.

Ergo, a topic I missed from a few weeks ago.

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Only books I read for the first time last year count, which is why I'm leaving off Sense and Sensibility and The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Also, these are not necessarily ordered according to greatness. Blurbs are from the reviews, just so you have something to look at. :)

1. Lilith by George MacDonald
—I sat on a blanket out in the sun with tears running down my face, feeling as close to having glimpsed a bit of the afterlife as ever I get.

2. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
—From its beautiful title and short, haunting first chapter, Kvothe’s story sets itself among the great works of fantasy.

3. The Giver by Lois Lowry
—The book... offers hope despite its horrors and uncertainties—a hope centered in the redemptive character of Jonas. Like many a child protagonist, he sees the world with an innocent clarity, a striking purity of heart. The very hopefulness of his closing dreams and of his selfless bravery are the sort of thing that can stand between the human person and inhumanity.

4. The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
—Some may find it too neatly tied up, but I am shameless about such things. I can’t believe it took me thirty years to find this book. I adored it.

5. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
—Ella has the pluck to accept her plight as something she must live with for the time, while always searching for her escape. Her playful spirit and her knack for the goofy linguistics carry the story, making her positively irresistible as a heroine.

6. Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn
—Good worldbuilding is supposedly the high point of fantasy, and it’s still one of my favorite discoveries to make in a new author or book. Shinn’s quasi-medieval Auburn... [is] beautifully realized.

7. The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
—Cazaril proved both interesting and sympathetic, a good man who becomes a great one not so much by growing from naivete to wisdom (though there is some of that, particularly as regards his relationship to the gods) as by continual willingness to obey the demands of rightness despite his feelings.

8. The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson #5) by Rick Riordan
—It’s hard not to love Percy’s enthusiastic, humorous middle-grade narrative, and he doesn’t let us down in this final installment.

9a. Xenocide by Orson Scott Card
—One of Card’s greatest strengths as a writer is in his empathy. Whatever a character thinks or believes or does, he is capable of putting himself into their mind and heart, showing the best of who they are and placing the reader firmly on their side.

9b. Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card
—Card’s Ender is arguably one of the most wholly and intrinsically lovable characters in fiction.... Larger than life in his wrongs and compassion as well as his intelligence, Ender turns his own unbearable guilt into humility, wisdom and understanding—a broken hero, but then, that’s the only kind humanity ever has.

10. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
—The novel’s third great success was the mythology of the capaill uisce themselves. Stiefvater portrays them with all the beauty and mystique of a horse, all the danger of grizzly bears, and all the magic of the Pegasus.

What were the best books you read in 2013? Or your favorites, at least?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Resolve to Read in 2013

This week's topic is Top Ten Bookish Goals For 2013, but I've already made public note of my primary goals for the year, bookish and otherwise. On account of which, I'm doing last week's topic, which I missed as last Tuesday was New Year's.

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Since I've pledged to read four to six fairy tale retellings:

• I'm particularly fond of the tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon, so 1) Jessica Day George's Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow should hit my inbox before long.
• I'd like to read 2) Edith Pattou's East, another version of the same tale, too.
• My sister Beth means to loan me 3) Robin McKinley's Sleeping Beauty adaptation, Spindle's End, which I'd have already if I'd remembered to get it from her yesterday.
• I've got my eye on Janette Rallison's Cinderella twists 4a) My Fair Godmother and/or 4b) My Unfair Godmother.

All this amounts to the likelihood that I'll hit my goal of four retellings sometime in February. I might become a Great and Terrible Beast instead of a Lady in Waiting by the end of the year.

And now, fireworks, please:

5) The final Wheel of Time book, A Memory of Light, came out today! I'll spare you the number of exclamation points I'm actually feeling on this subject. Suffice it to say that I'm resolved to begin reading the instant my copy shows up in the mail.

Yes, the mail. My go-to local bookstores didn't—as far as I could discover—host the sort of release celebration that would've allowed me to dress up as Aviendha, which would've been my best motivation for paying fifteen dollars more for the book than it cost to pre-order on Amazon. Ergo, I'm waiting on Standard Shipping. I have to finish 6) Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited before book club, anyway, so I might as well read that while I wait.

Somewhere in my resolves, I should make room for 7) Moby-Dick or War and Peace or even The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, the latter of which I've at least begun, though I lost patience with Tristram when he started going on for pages about his uncle's groin. I also ought to finish 8) The Silmarillion, which I started before last Christmas.

Oh, and I'd like to read Orson Scott Card's 9) Shadow Puppets and 10) Shadow of the Giant, too.

There, that's ten—just ten of the at-least-fifty-two I hope to read this year. Some titles may be subject to change without notice.

What books do you plan to read this year?

Top Ten Tuesday: Authors Who were New to Me This Year

This took a little research, because some of my last-January reviews were of books I'd read in December. Which means that I disqualified Tolstoy, whose Anna Karenina I reviewed this year, but according to Goodreads had finished reading just after last Christmas Day.

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To my surprise, it wasn't easy to pick ten. I'd forgotten how many good books I'd read early in the year.

The happy-go-lucky fantasists, who delighted my very soul and left me with the firm intent of reading many more of their works:

1. Juliet Marillier | Wildwood Dancing
2. Sharon Shinn | Summers at Castle Auburn

The exceptional fantasists, who first made me envious and then inspired me to develop thoughtful intricacy in my own fiction:

3. Patrick Rothfuss | The Name of the Wind
4. Erin Morgenstern | The Night Circus
5. Lois McMaster Bujold | The Curse of Chalion

The great middle-grade fantasists and science fictionists (hurrah: new word), who have become literary heroes to me:

6. Lois Lowry | The Giver
7. Jessica Day George | Tuesdays at the Castle
8. Gail Carson Levine | Ella Enchanted

And the happy-go-lucky non-fantasists, whose mysteries I now believe I can count on for good cheer:

9. Mary Stewart | The Moon-Spinners
10. Madeleine Brent | Moonraker's Bride

Have you read any great new-to-you authors this year? Feel free to praise them below. I'll need some new ones to include on next year's reading list, after all.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Wouldn't Mind Getting from Santa Claus

Dear St. Nicholas,

December 6 is just around the corner, which means expensive shipping. I'm terribly sorry about that. Also, I don't think any of these books will fit into my shoes. Even if I do wear a size eleven. Maybe if I put out my old riding boots...

Oh, all right. I'll write this letter to the popular Americanized version of the legendary character.

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Dear Santa,

NB: Our chimney has been long since blocked off by one of those tin plates, now painted over in a rather ugly brownish lavender. But since you've the magic to be everywhere at midnight, I don't doubt you can find your way in.

Do you like your chocolate cookies with coffee grounds in, or without? If I don't hear otherwise, I'll put them in. I am convinced that coffee has magical properties. Oh, but if anyone in my state leaves you brownies, I recommend caution. We just legalized marijuana.

All right, here's the list.

1. The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan. I read all these from the library, and am madly in love.

2. The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. A classic I adore but do not own.

3. The last two Bean books by Orson Scott Card: Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant. These I have not read, but must.

4. A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. No, it won't be here by Christmas, but I wouldn't mind having it on pre-order. And just as a hint—eventually I'd like the whole series, and I've only got 8, 10, and 11 thus far.

5. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. A book so lovely that I'd like to have a copy.

6. The Shannon Hale fantasy novels not yet on my shelves: Enna Burning, River Secrets, Forest Born, and Book of a Thousand Days.

7. I'd love to get ahold of something else by Brandon Sanderson. Maybe Mistborn.

That's only seven list items, but it's well over ten books, so I'll stop there. Thanks! I can leave you some oats for the reindeer if you think they'd like it.

Very truly yours,

Jenna

* * *

Now you all should post your Christmas lists. :)

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books of 2013

This topic requires me to confess something: I pay limited attention to upcoming releases. Not because I don't want to support authors, but because I find the average synopsis repellent. Strange, I know—but all the drama is exhausting. I feel the same way about kick-you-in-the-teeth first paragraphs. Pull me in with pretty language, show me signs of lovable characters. Don't tell me the book is about some wild, gutwrenching, apparently unresolvable situation, and then start off with "The one thing in life I can never seem to remember is that I'm dead."

Though, until the Target Audiences for Popular Novels resemble me more closely than they do now, the publishing industry is probably best served by ignoring that advice.

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That said, there are a handful of 2013 releases I already know I'll be interested to read.

1. A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. The final installment of The Wheel of Time. I'd actually wait in line at midnight for this one.

2. Transparent by Natalie Whipple. Because I've been reading the author's blog with much enjoyment for a couple of years. Her House of Ivy and Sorrow looks more interesting than Transparent to me, and I expect to be very excited to read it, but that one's not coming till 2014.

And... well, shoot. I was going to say Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger, but that's already out! Which means it's time to get my hands on a copy. She has a YA debut—Let the Sky Fall—coming, too, but the more I'm around the categories, the more I generally favor middle grade and young teen stories over the young adult ones. Keeper looks like especial fun. Though I just may wind up reading Let The Sky Fall, too.

More will come up as we progress through 2013, of course. I'm vastly more susceptible to reviews than to synopses.

What soon-to-come books are you looking forward to?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books and Authors I'm Thankful For

Hurrah for a topic full of happy thoughts! How am I going to limit this to ten?

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Looks like I'm going to have to cheat.

Books and their authors:

1. The Harry Potter series and author J.K. Rowling. For helping to stabilize my mind and heart in my time of darkest confusion.

2. Little Women and author Louisa May Alcott. For dwelling so closely to my own family, ever exemplifying and supporting the intimate friendship I now have with parents and sisters.

3. Orthodoxy and author G.K. Chesterton. For putting a finger on my own madness, and then pointing the way to sanity.

4. The Divine Comedy and author Dante. For pointing to the stars.

Authors whose claim on my gratitude is less tied to a single great work:

5. Clive Staples Lewis. For the countless times you've talked me free of Plato's Cave.

6. J.R.R. Tolkien. For being at least half the reason that fantasy fiction, such as it is, exists today.

7. St. Thérèse of Lisieux. For showing me that my weaknesses are overcome-able, no matter how often I submit to them. And for the prayers.

8. All the authors who gave me my childhood companions. Frances Hodgson Burnett for Sara Crewe and Mary Lennox, L.M. Montgomery for Anne Shirley, Johanna Spyri for Heidi, Laura Ingalls Wilder for herself, Madeleine L'Engle for Meg and Charles Wallace Murry, and ever so many more.

9. The authors who have taught me how and what to write. Jane Austen, Orson Scott Card, Shannon Hale, Elizabeth Goudge, Charlotte Brontë, Robert Jordan, and most of the authors previously mentioned.

10. A handful of yet-to-be published authors whose frequent encouragement, example, and critique of my own work has helped me immeasurably. Mr. Pond, Masha, Christie, Josh Richards, Jana G., Annie O'Connor, Jessi S., Laura B. and Ryan H. who are website-less, and hopefully I haven't missed anyone... You were credited here first. I'll see you in the annals of celebrated writerdom someday.

Which authors and books are you thankful for?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I'd Want on a Desert Island

Looking at this week's topic, I'm struck by the fact that if I were stranded alone on an uninhabited island, the books I'd want wouldn't necessarily be my favorites. Even the best novels seem insignificant when stacked up against that level of isolation. What I'd want would be the bedrock-works of culture, community, and religion: the books that would best convince me I wasn't entirely alone. The books with the ideas that would help me stay sane.

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Here, then, are the reminders of communal reality I'd want around me if I ended up alone with the coconut palms and the four winds and the tides.

1. The Holy Bible. The full Canon of Trent, please, and heck, if I could get the rest of the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha appendixed into the back, I would. I would want as much reading material around as possible. But all that aside, I'm not interested in a life of solitude that doesn't include the Psalms and the gospel of John.

2. A great big volume of the Desert Fathers' writings. They were all hermits. Their thoughts might prove helpful.

3. The complete works of Shakespeare. No, this is not cheating. We have two of these volumes lying around our house. I'd learn off whole sections and quote Beatrice to the toucans and shout Hamlet at the monsoons.

4. Bulfinch's Mythology. With a fair amount of spare time on my hands, once I'd learned how to harpoon fish with a sharpened stick, I'd catch up on my classical education. And then I'd have a more thorough understanding of the next book on my list, which is:

5. Dante's Divine Comedy. When I got tired of reciting Shakespeare, I could start on cantos of this. And should the island eventually be rediscovered, and my skeleton found in a cave with a trunk of carefully preserved books, I suspect the Purgatorio and Paradiso would be almost illegible from wear. (The Inferno, maybe not so much.)

6. The biggest, most thorough dictionary existing in the English language. Because coming across an unknown word and not being able to find out what it means would just be unbearable.

7. A solid language course, possibly Wheelock's Latin, although I'd also take Spanish or French or Russian or Italian or Greek or Hebrew or Mandarin or Japanese or, or... or even Quenya or Sindarin.

8. A great big book of astronomy. Because the one benefit to being on an uninhabited island would be the view of the stars.

9. All right, maybe I would take one favorite with me. Like the whole Harry Potter series, or the Space Trilogy, or The Chronicles of Narnia, or even The Lord of the Rings. Something epic, anyway.

10. Lastly but not quite leastly: the biggest book of blank pages available to mankind, and an endless supply of pens. Nobody said anything about how many pens I could take, right? I'd want a bushel of them. Then, when that island-rediscovering party comes along and finds my cave, there'll be one little contribution to human society left for them to find: hundreds of pages written through in tiny, tight handwriting. I won't guarantee that it would be an important contribution. But with all that spare time and solitude, it would seem wasteful to leave nothing.

What books would you want with you?

Top Ten Tuesday: Fictional Characters Who Defied Bad Politicians

So yeah, can you tell I'm disenchanted with election day? There's not much that's less inspiring to me than politics, which realm seems to favor any man who can prove his principles to be a dangerously unstable amalgam of a used car salesman's and a jackass'. Ergo, grumpy blogger who refuses to go anywhere near Facebook today.

Being an optimist, however, I can usually come up with some happy thoughts. Here are ten.

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Literature is full of heroes and heroines who stand up to corrupt power. If only it were as simple as Harry makes it look, right?

1. Harry Potter. For refusing to champion the Ministry of Magic while Scrimgeour was making false arrests. Down with dirty political shenanigans, like trying to pacify the public while undermining their safety and well-being! Honorable mention to Hermione and Ron for backing Harry entirely; especially Hermione, as she knew or at least upheld the law better than Scrimgeour did. The Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling

2. Albus Dumbledore. For refusing to join Cornelius Fudge in lying to the public. Even though it eventually meant his own arrest. (Well, attempted arrest. These things would be so much easier if one were vastly smarter and more magically powerful than the leaders of one's world. And if one had Fawkes for a pet.) The Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling

3. Andrew 'Ender' Wiggin. For standing up to mayor and bishop and Starways Congress alike to save Lusitania. Ender merits perhaps the highest honors of anyone on this list, as he respects rightful authority—both secular and religious—and challenges it, when necessary, with wisdom and humility. Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card

4. Maria Merryweather. For telling off her own wealthy relation and making him give Paradise Hill back to God. The Little White Horse, Elizabeth Goudge

5. Mortimer Folchart. For sabotaging his own work to keep the Adderhead from becoming immortal, at the risk of his own life. The Inkworld books, Cornelia Funke

6. Rand al'Thor. For being apparently the first man in centuries to stand up to the Aes Sedai, even their Amyrlin Seat, and for having no patience whatsoever with subtle political games (which is generally an impractical tactic, but refreshing). Of course, Rand developed his own set of problems in coming to power, which happens, especially when you're using a tainted form of magic that's slowly driving you mad. But he still managed to turn things around and become a good guy again. The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan

7. Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee. For arguing with the king of Bayern and his council to prevent a very unjust war with Kildenree. You go, sixteen-year-old girl. The Goose Girl, Shannon Hale

8. Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee. For marching into the Dark Lord's territory to destroy his source of power in his own forging fire. That takes guts. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

9. Treebeard. For calling out the Ents and marching against Saruman. Three cheers for the tree-shepherds! The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

10. Mark Studdock. For the line "It's all bloody nonsense, and I'm damned if I do any such thing." No, he's not the most deserving character. Mark is a chump at best through most of the story, and even this act of bravery doesn't shake him entirely free of his idiocy, but it becomes his own redemption. Sometimes, all any of us chumps can do is keep ourselves from becoming evil. That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis

Hmmm. There's nothing like getting to the bottom of a top-ten list and realizing you left out The Hunger Games and Twilight. Frankly, I'm not sure which would be more terrifying: facing down a cabal of powerful and ruthless vampires, or defying a sadistic human government with innumerable sci-fi horrors at its disposal. So—

11 and 12. Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. For breaking the Games rules, refusing to submit under torture, and standing up to both Presidents Snow and Coin. Bravery of the first order, there.

13, 14, 15, 16, and beyond. Bella, Alice, Carlisle, and Edward Cullen and friends, all for taking direct and unbelievably courageous action against the Volturi. Way to defend the freedom to live in peace.

All right. I spouted this list off the top of my head—obviously. Who am I forgetting, and who do I not know?