Yay, book superlatives!  This is one of my favorite posts of the year to write.  Giving high school yearbook awards to the books I read over the course of the previous year just tickles me right in the funny bone.  Y’all know what this is about, so no more preface – let’s get down to it.

Brainiest.  This year’s valedictorian was… Marilynne Robinson, again!  One of the first books I read in 2016 was also one of the smartest.  I didn’t understand a word of When I Was a Child I Read Books, but I’m hoping my brain got bigger for reading it.

Best Looking.  Kathryn Aalto wins this category for The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh, which I devoured this summer.  Gorgeous pictures of the flora and fauna of Ashdown Forest, interspersed with E.H. Shepard’s illustrations from Winnie-the-Pooh – no one else could compete.

Best Friends.  Kamala and Bruno have the sweetest, most adorable, most supportive and nerdiest friendship in Jersey City.  (Of course Bruno has to go and complicate it.  Maybe next year they’ll move to the “Cutest Couple” category, but for now these BFFs get “Best Friends” honors.)

Class Clown.  The award goes to Mindy Kaling!  (Again?  Has she won before?  I can’t keep track.)  Why Not Me? got some mixed reviews, but for my part, I found it hilarious – especially Mindy’s reinvention of herself as a wannabe-party girl Latin teacher at a posh NYC prep school.  Who else but Mindy would construct an elaborate fantasy world in which her colleagues hate her?

Biggest Jock.  It was a decidedly un-athletic class this year, so the pickings were slim.  Biggest Jock has to go, for lack of anyone more muscley, to Robert Langdon, whose daily swimming habit saves his life when he gets dropped from a papal helicopter into the river in Rome during one of the climactic scenes of Angels and Demons.  Swimming.  It saves symbologists.

Teacher’s Pet.  Elena gets the title, for her determination to succeed in school just so she can have one area of life where she is more brilliant than her brilliant friend Lila.

Biggest Nerd.  Kamala again, because how can I not give “Biggest Nerd” to the teen superhero who geeks out at meeting Wolverine, star of her most up-voted fanfic?

Most Creative.  One of my favorite books of the year, To the Bright Edge of the World takes the award for “Most Creative.”  I wouldn’t want to meet that raven man in a dark alley.

Most Opinionated.  I read a lot of fantastic books on important issues this year, so this was a tough category to decide – but it has to go to Jesmyn Ward for her roundup of essays on the African-American experience.  Not an easy read, but easily one of the most important books of the early 21st century.

Most Likely to End Up in Hollywood.  The Regional Office is Under Attack! was written as if it was just begging to be made into an action film.  It was nowhere near my favorite book of the year, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it ended up on the big screen.

Biggest Rebel.  The ten dollar founding father without a father gets the title this year – how could he not?  2016 continued my obsession with all things Hamilton, including Hamilton: the Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s libretto of the Broadway musical that is changing the face (literally) of theatre.

Biggest Loner.  She never actually got to be alone, between the prison and the insane asylum, but Grace Marks was definitely That Weird Kid.

Cutest Couple.  In a stunning upset, Marko and Alana win this one!  They’re not exactly the popular kids (every bounty hunter in the galaxy is out to kill them) but every so often there’s a surprise in yearbook voting.

Most Likely to Succeed.  When the stakes are high enough, failure is not an option.  So say The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, and you should listen to them.

Way too much fun!  Who were the valedictorians, prom queens and quarterbacks of your reading list last year?