The best children’s and YA books of 2017 – Irish Times

Sara Keating (younger titles) and Claire Hennessy (YA) select their favourite books of 2017…

There are expected inclusions, but also some less-mentioned titles, as in this section of Claire Hennessy’s choices:

For high-concept plots supported by exemplary writing, look no further than the glorious page-turner that is MA Bennett’s S.T.A.G.S. (Hot Key Books, £7.99). Not clicking? Try Kendra Fortmeyer’s Hole In The Middle (Atom, £7.99), where teenage ‘emptiness’ is made literal, or Aaron Starmer’s Spontaneous (Canongate, £7.99), in which leaving-school-blues collide with spontaneous combustion, or Adam Silvera’s They Both Die At The End(Simon & Schuster, £7.99), which posits meeting the love of your life the day you’re both scheduled to die.

Saving lyrical wonderfulness for last: the Irish authors have it. Sarah Carroll’s The Girl In Between (Simon & Schuster, £7.99), Moira Fowley-Doyle’s The Spellbook of the Lost and Found (Corgi, £7.99) and Deirdre Sullivan’s Tangleweed and Brine (Little Island, €16; illustrations by Karen Vaughan) offer up haunting and stunning takes on what it means to be a teenage girl.

full piece >>> https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-best-children-s-and-ya-books-of-2017-1.3311245