One phenomenon which has swept pop culture media as of late is a replacement for the classic “Let’s count down the 10/20/50/100 best examples of something or other of all time!” article as a way of ranking the greatest somethings or other. Instead, websites from Grantland to Vulture have swiped the NCAA Bracket model, picking the 64 greatest songs of the Millennium or television dramas and having readers vote to knock them out one by one until only a single example remains. If the seeding process is even less scientific than the NCAA model (How did they decide to pit The Wire against My So-Called Life in round one?) it’s still no more random than sticking “Tower of Song” one spot ahead of “Waiting for the Miracle” when Flavorwire picked the 79 best Leonard Cohen songs of all time. And allowing the audience to have their say makes it a bit more fun, giving one a reason to care about something arbitrary. The reason for bringing up the subject is that Entertainment Weekly recently did a bracket which I found out about a little too late…okay, just after the Final Four had been cut to the ultimate Two…but I was attracted to right away because it touched a subject dear to my heart, and I think the hearts of my colleagues and our own readers as well.
The 64 Greatest Young Adult Novels of All Time
Naturally, this could not escape some commentary on the level of Alex and I’s dissection of the Sight and Sound poll last year, for even more than cinema, there were books on this list which will forever be associated with key moments of my childhood, my personal growth as a writer, and inspiring thoughts on love, life, the universe, and everything. Douglas Adams does not appear on this list, by the way, though you could argue if any of his work could be defined as young adult, and even then he is NOT the most glaring omission. That being said, quibbling over the reduction of the shelves upon shelves of literature I used to keep in order at Barnes & Noble to a scant 64 titles is not the game I wish to play, especially because the field got one very important thing correct right away, and which made this bracket a worthwhile endeavor.
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