*Hat tip to Catherine Nichols for the title of this post, which I blatantly stole.
Our panelists had the Herculean task of winnowing down a long list of nominees to this year's batch of finalists. We asked them to fight for their favorites and some of the discussions became the online equivalent of sparring matches. Very, very polite sparring matches, I'm sure, given that we're mostly introverts and aggression isn't quite our thing.
But it's still pretty bruising if you were hoping to push a book to the top and it failed to build a consensus or you were flatly outvoted. Whatever the reason, many panelists couldn't let these books go. I asked that if anyone blogged about titles that deserved a last, Cybils-led hurrah, to let me know. I have listed all of the blogs below.
I hope you'll browse the links and find a few more gems that had at least one vocal supporter, even if it wasn't enough to put them over the top for Cybils.
Easy Readers/Early Chapter Books
The Cath in the Hat picked Nick Bruel's Bad Kitty Meets the Baby and several others at a post with links to her original reviews.
Fantasy/Science Fiction
Charlotte's Library gives us four tween fantasy and science fiction choices she would've loved to have seen on our short list.
Over at Confessions of a Bibliovere there are two choices that didn't make the final cut for teen fantasy.
Fiction Picture Books
We were lucky to have two judges from 5 Minutes for Books, but they did one post for their runners-up. Scroll down for Dawn's picks for Fiction Picture Books.
Graphic Novels
Guerilla Librarian recommends Ozma of Oz, an adaptation of L. Frank Baum's novels.
Everead tapped Around the World by Matt Phelan and posted a review.
Middle Grade Fiction
Sharp Read provides links to his Top Ten for last year, many of which made our finals.
And here's that link again for 5 Minutes for Books to get Jennifer's picks in this genre.
Nonfiction Picture Books
Jean Little Library usually does a batch reviews of Cybils nominees at one go, so she emailed me to point out specific titles from two posts. In this first post, scroll down to An Edible Alphabet for her pick for also-ran. In this one, her review of The Guardian Team is at the top.