This post is part of Colleen’s initiative for people to blog about giving books as gifts, which is a fine thing to do. (I myself have made a pledge to buy handmade, and I haven’t learned bookmaking yet, so I won’t be giving these.)

I am going to talk about some books I have read in the past year, and specific people in my life to whom I would give them. You’ll notice that these aren’t in tidy categories; sorry. I’ll try to give you a picture of what each person is like, so you can understand my book selections. I’ll talk about one person’s selections per day.

The first recipient of my imaginary book gifts is my friend Alana. Alana is a big fan of things morbid, creepy, goth, and sort of old-worldy. I would purchase A Drowned Maiden’s Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz for her, because its combination of historicity with eeriness would suit her taste well, I think. Just the fact that “A Melodrama” is part of the full title suggests to me that this is a book for Alana. I think Maud’s orphan-to-con artist transformation would amuse her greatly. Alana is in school to become a teacher, and it is for this reason that I would give her Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes. Through the alternating poetry and prose, Nikki Grimes shows how one teacher’s recognizing a “teachable moment” can snowball into a community building effort. This is the kind of inspirational book that future teachers need to read.

Return here for future links to the other posts in this series. Visit Colleen’s post collecting recommendations from around the kidlitosphere.