The Battle Commander and the Commentator read furiously throughout 2011, reread, looked at what others were admiring, read more, argued, reread, agreed, disagreed, read some more, and by early December (in order to give time for our SLJ man-behind-the-curtain to begin recruiting judges) came up with our contenders. Then we had to keep it a secret from all of you for weeks and weeks! So here we are mighty chuffed (using last year's winner's lovely term) at last to be announcing this year's list. (The brackets can be viewed here with a downloadable version available here.)