Top Ten Tuesday: Syllabus Books

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's theme is Top Ten Books That Would Be On Your Syllabus If You Taught X 101.

Mariela's List - Fiction 101

Oulander would be my #1! Diana Gabaldon is a genius and she wrote the most amazing love story mixed with fascinating history that I have ever read.   _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Percy Jackson and The Olympians by Rick Riordan. I have learned a lot about Greek mythology with these books. Everyone needs to read them!   _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Alanna Series by Tamora Pierce. These books should be read by every young little girl out there. It teaches them that they can do anything, they can be anything that they want to be and if they put their mind to it they can be completely unstoppable. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

A Series of Unfortunate Events Lemony Snicket. I have not read the books but my 9 year old daughter love these books to death! She think they are amazing so I would recommend to any parent to get them for their kids.   _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Allyson's List - Young Adult Fantasy 101

Starting the list off with a little bit of cheating! Daughter of the Forest is not really a young adult book. It does have some mature themes in it, and some really awful things happen to Sorcha that might be a little too adult for YA readers. But, I think if a reader can get through that without being too emotionally scarred, there are a lot of really great messages here for readers. Chief of which being to trust your own heart and that whenever you think you don't have the strength to go on, you can be surprised at how strong you can really be. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Poison Study was such a surprise for me. Having seen it a hundred times and always discounting it as something I wouldn't care about, I came across it with a different cover and description at my local HPB for a dollar. I am a sucker for a cheap find, so I bought it and got about 50 pages in before I realized it sounded so familiar to something I had come across before. Needless to say, I am incredibly glad that I gave this book another chance. The growth that the main character goes through, from victim and criminal to someone who can stand tall and kick more than a little ass when needed is just exceptional. And then there is Valek, the assassin in chief to the Commander, the man who should have killed Yelena yet gave her a new shot at life instead. Their relationship is a lot of fun to watch as moves from captor to teacher then to friend and finally something more. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Also technically not a YA fantasy, that's mostly because when it was published there really was no such thing. This series is full of everything that makes fantasy great. You have the young boy with a secret identity that even he knows nothing about, the wizards who helped hide him away so that he could grow into the man that he is supposed to become and a great journey across the land to save the world from the grip of an evil madman. And of course a deadly and sometimes quirky band of misfits that tag along to help out with the quest! It's quintessential fantasy 101.  _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

If you couldn't tell by the books I pick for Top Tuesday or from my reviews, I am an absolute sucker for strong female characters. There is nothing more I love than a lead character who discovers she is a lot stronger than she could have ever imagined and doesn't sit around and whine til somebody comes and saves her. Of course, I can be a sucker for those books too, but it's usually not my bag. The Shifter is the perfect example of a character who starts the story out as a quiet, scared girl who just wants to hide her true self and go with the status quo. But as the story goes on, Nya develops into this amazing character who isn't content to sit back and stay quiet and realizes that she has so much more to offer to the world in making it a better place.  _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

I really struggled with which book should deserve the last spot on this list. There are so many amazing fantasy books out there, it's hard to choose just five! But in the end, Dragonfly won because it was the book that kept coming to mind. There is nothing revolutionary in this book, yet it is still a worthwhile read. It's nicely written and the characters are really easy to fall in love with. It also has one of the most memorable villains in fantasy that I have come across.