It's time to embrace the (Book) Madness!


BookMadness

Grab your brackets and a pencil (or pen, if you're feeling lucky) -- it's Book Madness at ICPL!

Visit our display on the Library's first floor to check out what titles will face off in this literary competition. Beginning March 17, you can vote for your favorite title in our Book Madness brackets – there’s one for children’s books, and another for teens and adults. To start, we have 64 titles in four categories. Submit a vote for your favorite(s) – if you want to vote for just one book, you can, or you can choose 32 titles to move forward in the first two rounds; it’s up to you! – and watch as the titles progress.

Here are the dates to remember:

  • First and Second Rounds: March 17-22
  • Sweet 16: March 26 and 27
  • Elite 8: March 28 and 29
  • Final 4: April 4
  • Championship Game: April 6

(Given the large number of books, all votes must be made at the display in the Library. Once we reach Elite Eight status, we will allow for voting on our Facebook page.)

New this year: Printed brackets will be available from March 2 to March 16. Fill one out and return it to the basketball hoop by the Book Madness display by March 16 to be eligible for a new copy of the winning Book Madness title. Brackets must have the final winning title to be eligible. A new book in each bracket will be awarded.

Last year's winning titles -- Harry Potter in the Children's bracket, To Kill a Mockingbird in the Teens and Adults bracket -- will not compete in this year's contest.

Here's a list of this year's books. Who do you think will win it all?

2015 BOOK MADNESS – CHILDREN’S

BELOVED CHARACTERS

  • Olivia
  • Winnie the Pooh
  • Paddington Bear
  • Curious George
  • Pigeon
  • Clifford
  • Anne of Green Gables
  • Geronimo Stilton
  • Percy Jackson
  • Laura Ingalls Wilder
  • Madeline
  • Nancy Drew
  • The Cat in the Hat
  • Little Critter
  • Angelina Ballerina
  • Pete the Cat

BOOKS THAT GOT YOU HOOKED ON READING

  • A Bargain for Frances by Lillian and Russell Hoban
  • The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  • The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
  • Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  • Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry
  • Heidi by Johanna Spyri
  • Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
  • The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
  • Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
  • The Giver by Lois Lowry
  • Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
  • Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
  • Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
  • The BFG by Roald Dahl
  • Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel

BEST SERIES

  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid
  • Little House on the Prairie
  • Bone
  • Amulet
  • Lunch Lady
  • The Kingdom of Wrenly
  • A to Z Mysteries
  • Magic Tree House
  • Elephant and Piggie
  • Junie B. Jones
  • Bink and Gollie
  • Ivy and Bean
  • Babymouse
  • Big Nate
  • American Girl
  • Rainbow Magic Fairies

WORDLESS PICTURE BOOKS

  • Journey by Aaron Becker
  • The Snowman by Raymond Briggs
  • Good Dog, Carl By Alexandra Day
  • Hank Finds an Egg by Rebecca Dudley
  • Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle
  • Wave; Shadowl Mirror by Suzy Lee
  • A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog by Mercer Mayer
  • The Girl and the Bicycle by Mark Pett
  • Owly by Andy Runton
  • The Umbrella by Ingrid and Dieter Schubert
  • Korgi by Christian Slade
  • Chalk by Bill Thomson
  • Tuesday by David Wiesner
  • Zoom by Istvan Banyai
  • Fox’s Garden by Princesse Camcam
  • The Arrival by Shaun Tan

2015 BOOK MADNESS – TEENS AND ADULTS

HUMOR ME

  • The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
  • How to Tell If Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You by The Oatmeal
  • Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  • The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman
  • Bossypants by Tina Fey
  • Heartburn by Nora Ephron
  • Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
  • A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
  • Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  • Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
  • Yes Please! By Amy Poehler
  • I Drink for a Reason by David Cross
  • Not that kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
  • One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
  • Wake Up, Sir! By Jonathan Ames
  • Kill Your Friends by John Niven

BOOKS THAT BLOW YOUR MIND

  • The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais
  • A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
  • Griffin & Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence by Nick Bantock
  • Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
  • Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
  • Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keys
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
  • Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
  • The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
  • The Foundation by Isaac Asimov
  • The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
  • The Stranger by Albert Camus
  • Beloved by Toni Morrison
  • The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
  • Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
  • House Rules by Jodi Picoult

BIG BOOKS WORTH THE EFFORT

  • Middlemarch by George Eliot
  • Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
  • Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
  • Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
  • War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  • East of Eden by John Steinbeck
  • David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  • Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
  • The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
  • A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
  • The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
  • 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  • The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkein
  • Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
  • The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
  • The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

IOWA WRITERS

  • Leave Myself Behind by Bart Yates
  • Descent by Tim Johnston
  • Lila by Marilynne Robinson
  • Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis’
  • A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
  • Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron
  • The Magic Thief series by Sarah Prineas
  • The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
  • On the Island by Tracey Garvis Graves
  • The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf
  • A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich
  • The Princesses of Iowa by M. Molly Backes
  • We Are Mesquakie, We Are One by Hadley Irwin
  • What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? By Peter Hedges
  • Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Pie by Beth M. Howard
  • Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish

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