Tenth Annual Tea and Ink Society Book Oscars
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Here’s my annual roundup of notable reads from the past year, sorted by “Best of” categories…like the Oscars, but for books!
Unbelievably, this is my tenth time of doing Book Oscars, an exercise where I look back over my reading log for the previous year and give “awards” to memorable heroes, heroines, and titles from various categories of books I read. In fact, Book Oscars Volume I was the first post I ever published here at Tea and Ink Society! Reflecting on this stirs up so my good book memories and blogging memories. However long you’ve been along for the ride, I’m honoured to have you!
Now, let’s take a look at the award-winning books I read and characters I met in 2025.
Presenting…The 2026 Tea and Ink Society Book Oscars
Best Heroine: Julie Trelling from Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt
The “coming-of-age” narrative is one of my favourite genres, and I am always delighted to meet the young heroes and heroines of these stories. Julie Trelling is 7 when her book begins, horribly untethered after losing her mother and moving to the country to live with her spinster aunt. As the reader, you get to walk with her through the next decade of her life as she gradually matures towards adulthood. Julie is childish, biased, selfish, and vain; you see all this–and still sympathize with her–and then get to witness the satisfying transformation as she confronts her faults and becomes an admirable person.
My main complaint with the book is that it just isn’t long enough! I would’ve loved to spend more time here, in an Emily of New Moon sort of trilogy. And yes, this is a great pick for L. M. Montgomery fans, but it’s definitely its own thing, too.
Related: See this post for more girls’ coming-of-age stories.
Best Supporting Heroine: Aunt Cordelia from Up a Road Slowly
Yes, Up a Road Slowly wins in two categories! Julie Trelling wouldn’t have been who she became with Aunt Cordelia, and Aunt Cordelia is well deserving of the Oscar for best supporting heroine. If you enjoy the Anne-Marilla dynamic, you’ll find much to appreciate in the relationship between Julie and Aunt Cordelia. I loved Aunt Cordelia’s wisdom in shepherding Julie, her dedication to her little country school and her generations of students, her hospitality, and her care for her home and way of life.
Best Hero: Gilliatt from The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo creates some Big Characters in his stories, and Gilliatt is one of them! Now, let me clarify this: Gilliatt does not have a big personality, he has a big character. He’s unassuming, and quiet, and isolated, but when he encounters a goal he deems worthy, he is unstoppable. His brutal and solitary weeks on the Douvres rocks off the coast of Guernsey show him to be persevering, resourceful, hopeful, and courageous. This was Hugo’s “man vs nature” tale, and he incarnated the precise hero needed for the struggle.
Related: Find more nautical novels here.
Best Supporting Hero: Uncle Jonathan from The House with a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs
The kind and eccentric Jonathan Barnavelt welcomes his orphaned nephew Lewis into his life, and everything that entails: a haunted mansion, parlour magic tricks, late-night hot cocoa, and a next door neighbour as odd as he his. This is a cozy and ghoulish children’s story with a small but very memorable cast of characters.
Best Villain: Caroline from Black Rabbit Hall by Erin Chase
Caroline is the classic “wicked stepmother” in this family drama, and the author manages to make her both truly villainous and believable as a person. The novel time jumps between the 1960s and the 2000s. Caroline is one of the main characters in the 2000s timeline, and you gradually get a fuller picture of who she was in the past and what the past has made her into as an old woman.
Note: Eve Chase is a good author for fans of Kate Morton books!
The Book Lover’s Companion
Need a better way to keep track of ALL the bookish parts of your life this year? Get a Tea and Ink Society book journal…
Best Setting and Descriptions: The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin
This was a really fun, funny mystery, and a Where’s Where of Oxford. Having had the privilege of living in Oxford for a few months, and going everywhere on foot, I could visualize the places and the streets that the sleuths caper through. (Yes, caper.) I enjoyed this immensely and want to read more by Crispin!
Related: Find more books set in Oxford here.
Best Short Story: “The Grey Woman” by Elizabeth Gaskell
This is a whole-nine-yards gothic offering from Elizabeth Gaskell, complete with oppressed wife, isolated castle, rapacious thieves, loyal servants, and helpful peasants. You can read it with your tea tonight here. The pace and suspense are on point!
Best Non-Fiction: Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
If you want to be amazed at fungi (which, shouldn’t we all?) this is the book for you! I knew fungi were “smart,” I knew our world is awesomely complex, I knew that life is fearfully and wonderfully made and maintained, but this book is such a marvelous tour of specific ways that these things are true. Entangled Life is rather academic at times, but I appreciate that the author wanted to make a serious contribution to the field of mycology, and not get too sidetracked by speculation (although he does throw out some tantalizing threads that make you wonder what they’ll discover next!)
Best re-read: Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright
Oh, my. Reading this book as a tween already gave me that mellow feeling of nostalgia, so imagine reading it now, decades later, with more galaxies of memory to my name. This is a time capsule book, both for what’s inside, and for what it calls to inside you. To me, Enright is an author who creates fantasy worlds inside the real one, and enables her inhabitants (readers and characters) to exist in both the familiar and the special.
What Book Oscars would you give to your favourite reads from the past year?
Book Oscars from Past Years
Here are the other previous Book Oscars I’ve done, if you want way too many ideas for your TBR:
I always look forward to your book Oscar’s post- thank you!!!
Aww, you’re welcome!!
10 years of Book Oscars! Wow, Elsie! That deserves an award in itself.
Putting these reads on my mental wishlist : )
I know, it’s crazy! I own or can get you access to any of these books if you want to borrow them(;
Love your phrase “galaxies of memory!” It perfectly captures my decades of numerous and vastly different occupations, relationships, environments, and adventures. A thick volume of tales potentially, but I’m too indulgent, I’d rather read!
I agree! I have so many tales I could tell, but then where would be the time for all the tales I want to read? Still, maybe someday, a few of them…
Elsie, thanks very much for your Book Oscars — both the concept and the specifics! And thanks for leaving up the links to the previous years’ lists too.
I decided to follow your suggestion and make an Oscar list for the books I read in 2025. For what it’s worth:
*Best Book About Other Books: What Makes This Book So Great: Re-Reading the Classics of Science Fiction & Fantasy, by Jo Walton (2014)
*Best Classic Reimagined (Graphic): Big Jim and the White Boy, by David F. Walker & Marcus Kwame Anderson (2024)
*Best Classic Reimagined (Text): Friday and Robinson: Life on Speranza Island, by Michel Tournier (1971)
*Best Crime Novel (Classic): Trent’s Last Case, by E. C. Bentley (1913)
*Best Crime Novel (Recent): The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman (2020)
*Best Graphic Adaptation: Kafkaesque: Fourteen Stories, by Franz Kafka and adapted by Peter Kuper (2018)
*Best Graphic Memoir: A First Time for Everything, by Dan Santat (2023)
*Best Graphic Nonfiction: The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien, by John Hendrix (2024)
*Best Manga: Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, by Kanehito Yamada & Tsukasa Abe (2021-)
*Best Middle Grade Fantasy: The Magisterium series by Holly Black & Cassandra Clare (2014-2018)
*Best Middle Grade Novel: The First State of Being, by Erin Entrada Kelly (2024)
*Best Middle Grade SciFi: The Reckoners series by Brandon Sanderson (2013-2016)
*Best Picture Book (Art): The Invisible Parade, illustrated by John Picacio (and written by Leigh Bardugo) (2025)
*Best Picture Book (Jewish): The Three Little Sheep: A Tale for Sukkot, by Ann Diament Koffsky (2025)
*Best Picture Book (Science): Search for a Giant Squid: Pick Your Path, by Amy Seto Forrester & Andy Chou Musser (2023)
*Best Picture Book (Story): I’m Sorry You Got Mad, by Kyle Lukoff & Julie Kwon (2024)
*Best Poetry: I’m Just No Good at Rhyming: And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups, by Chris Harris & Lane Smith (2017)
*Best Steampunk: H. G. Wells: Secret Agent, by Alex Shvartsman (2015)
*Best Writing: Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury (1957)
*Best YA Fantasy: The Wayward Children novella series by Seanan McGuire (2016-)
*Best YA Fiction: Frankly in Love, by David Yoon (2019)
*Best YA Nonfiction: The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives, by Dashka Slater (2017)
*Most Memorable Hero: Don Fabrizio, in The Leopard, by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1958)
*Most Memorable Heroine: Flavia de Luce, in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley (2009)
*Most Readable Translation: Anna Karenina, translated by Leonard J. Kent & Nina Berberova (1965)
Sorry the list is so long, but these are all pretty good!
Ooh, yes!! Thanks for sharing! I love your categories. So many interesting books I’ve never heard of, too! I picked up Trent’s Last Case from the used bookstore a couple of years ago, but haven’t read it yet. It had a glowing endorsement from Dorothy L. Sayers on the cover. The Mythmakers has been on my TBR. I love Robinsonade stories, but unfortunately it looks like Friday and Robinson would be hard to find. Have you read Foe by J. M. Coetzee? One of my favourite books (probably a “desert island” pick) is on your list: Dandelion Wine. It’s been almost a decade since I read it last, so I need to put it back into rotation this summer!