We asked the experts. They told us.

Maine librarians were asked for their No. 1 top book – one each for adults, for teens and for children. The result: plenty of the best books every written. (Asterisks indicate that more than one librarian picked the book as a top choice.)

Children

• “Blueberries for Sal” by Robert McCloskey*

• “Charlotte’s Web” by E. B. White*

• “Miss Rumphius” by Barbara Cooney*

• “Because of Winn Dixie” by Kate DiCamillo*

• “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” by Judi Barrett

• “Wild Child” by Lynn Plourde

• “A Garland for Girls” by Louisa May Alcott

• “Trouble for Trumpets” by Peter Dallas-Smith

• “Bambi” by Felix Salten

• “The Dark is Rising” by Susan Cooper

• “Charlie Parker Played BeBop” by Chris Raschka

• “Bread and Jam for Frances” by Russell Hoban

• “Burt Dow: Deep Water Man” by Robert McClosky

• “Great Good Thing” by Rod Townley

• “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane” by Kate Dicamillo

• “Time of Wonder” by Robert McCloskey

• “Turn-Around Upside-Down Alphabet Book” by Lisa Campbell Ernst

• “The Diary of a Worm” by Doreen Cronin

• “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” by E.L. Konigsburg

• “Green Eggs and Ham” by Dr. Seuss

• “Dear Mr. Blueberry” by Simon James

• “Smokey the Cow Horse” by Will James

• “Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale” by Mo Willems

• “Actual Size” by Steve Jenkins

• “My Many Colored Days” by Dr. Seuss

• “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein

Teens/ Young Adult

• “To Kill a Mocking Bird” by Harper Lee*

• “The Giver” by Lois Lowry*

• “Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen*

• “Catcher In The Rye” by J.D. Salinger*

• “Harry Potter series” by J.K. Rowling*

• “Lord of the Rings trilogy” by J.R.R. Tolkien*

• “Hard Love” by Ellen Wittlinger

• “Guys Write for Guys Read” edited by Jon Scieszka

• “Boy: Tales of Childhood” by Roald Dahl

• “Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment” by James Patterson

• “Whale Talk ” by Chris Crutcher

• “Forgotten Fire” by Adam Bagdasarian

• “Franny and Zooey” by J.D. Salinger

• “Holes” by Louis Sachar.

• “Dibs: In Search of Self” by Virginia Mae Axline

• “Hope Was Here” by Joan Bauer

• “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card

• “Anne of Green Gables” by L.M. Montgomery

• “Uglies” by Scott Westerfeld

• “Diary of Anne Frank” by Anne Frank

• “What My Mother Doesn’t Know” by Sonya Sones

• “Peter and the Starcatchers” by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

• “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou

• “Go Ask Alice” by Anonymous

• “The Princess Diaries” by Meg Cabot

• “Dogsong” by Gary Paulsen

• “Doc Savage” series by Kenneth Robeson

Adults

• “The Shipping News” by Annie Proulx *

• “The Notebook” by Nicholas Sparks*

• “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold*

• “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger*

• “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett*

• “Isles of Glory” trilogy (The Aware, Gilfeather and The Tainted) by Glenda Larke

• “My Sister’s Keeper” by Jodi Picoult

• “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque

• “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe

• “Sacajawea” by Anna Lee Waldo

• “Quietus” by Vivian Schilling

• “The Once and Future King” by T.H. White.

• “My Antonia” by Willa Cather

• “Stones from the River” by Ursula Hegi

• “The Color of Water” by James McBride

• “The Corrections” by Jonathan Franzen

• “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf

• “Beloved” by Toni Morrison

• “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau

• “The Grass Harp” by Truman Capote

• “All Creatures Great and Small” by James Herriot

• “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” by Carson McCullers

• “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom

• “Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes

• “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini

• “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” series by Alexander McCall Smith

• “Love Medicine” by Louise Erdrich

• “Stop-time” by Frank Conroy

• “Botany of Desire” by Michael Pollan

• “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night” by Mark Haddon

• “Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time” by Michael Perry

• “The Jury Master” by Robert Dugoni

Others

• Anything by Nevada Barr, Nora Roberts, Nicholas Sparks, Danielle Steel, Harlan Ellison and James Michener

• Poetry by Lucille Clifton, Jane Kenyon, Lisel Mueller, Mary Oliver, Ruth Foreman, Nikki Giovanni, Gwendolyn Brooks, W.H. Auden, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Archibald MacLeish, Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes.

• Maine authors:

– “Onward and Upward in the Garden” by Katherine White

– “Country of the Pointed Firs” by Sarah Orne Jewett

– Any of E.B. White’s essays or correspondence

– Ruth Moore’s novels

• “The Night Before Christmas” by Robert Sabuda (pop up book)