1. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, Knopf
2. The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green, Dutton
3. The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell, by Chris Colfer, Little Brown
4. The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster, Jules Feiffer (Illus.), Yearling
5. Wonder, by R.J. Palacio, Knopf
6. The Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book, by Jeff Kinney, Amulet
7. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs, Quirk
8. Nancy Clancy, Super Sleuth, by Jane O'Connor, Robin Preiss Glasser (Illus.), Harper
9. Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman, Random House
10. Between the Lines, by Jodi Picoult, Samantha Van Leer, Emily Bestler Books
11. Chomp, by Carl Hiaasen, Knopf
12. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, Ellen Forney (Illus.), Little Brown
13. Big Nate Fun Blaster, by Lincoln Peirce, Lincoln Peirce (Illus.), Harper
14. Dare to Dream: Life as One Direction, by One Direction, Harper
15. Looking for Alaska, by John Green, Puffin
Mark Sappenfield
Dear Reader,
About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
