Anne here, your Cybils Overlord. I'm leaving you for a while. Oh, it's nothing you all did, except make this here literary awards into something really amazing and prestigious and fun. That kept me busy. Too busy, I'm sorry to say.
I am changing careers and readying for my new job, which starts next week. Inspired by the teachers, authors, bloggers and librarians I've met through Cybils, I'm going to give this whole edjoo-kashun thing a whirl. I'll be teaching 6th grade English at a brand-spanking-new charter school called Basis Phoenix. Classes in Arizona start Aug. 8th, and the next few weeks will be filled with teacher training.
My employer made me explicitly promise to curtail my involvement with Cybils while I mastered my new job. They're right. I'll be teaching 6 sections -- that's more than 150 kids -- and they deserve my full attention.
I plan to be back in December in time to post the short lists, and I am going to beg and plead my way onto a judging roster for Round 2 if anyone can still stand my opinionated self.
In the meantime, Jackie Parker has graciously agreed to fill in for me. Jackie has organized our Young Adult Fiction judges for, um, a while. A long while. Five years? Six? She is indispensible to Cybils, in any case. The transition occurred very smoothly. I sent out an email saying, "Jackie, you're it." And voila! It is so.
It is good to be the Overlord -- even one on hiatus.
Enjoy the upcoming Cybils season.
Wishing you all the best, my friend. You're going to have a grand time...years ago I stood and greeted sixth graders as the year began and what great sharing and learning time it was for me...and I hope and believe it was for them as well! I will be thinking of you August 8 as you begin this journey!
Posted by: Carol Hampton Rasco | July 19, 2012 at 06:21 PM
Best of luck to you! As a 6th grade ELA teacher, I agree that you're going to need that extra time. I wish you heaps of success.
Posted by: Miss K | July 19, 2012 at 06:23 PM
Sixth graders will be VERY impressed that you are an Overload, so don't let them forget it. Sixth grade is the perfect age-- old enough not to leak with any regularity, but young enough that they are not overly sassy. And what awesome resources you have to get your students books. Best of luck!
Posted by: Ms. Yingling | July 19, 2012 at 06:24 PM
Congrats to you, Anne, and best of luck. You will be missed but those kids are so, so lucky to have you!
Posted by: Kelly | July 19, 2012 at 07:35 PM
Anne, enjoy your new kiddos! And if y'all have time to share some writing with an international online audience, please check out The GiggleIT Project, sponsored by Intl Assoc of School Librarianship: http://www.iasl-online.org/sla/giggleIT/index.htm The 2012 theme is Trickster Tales Around the World.
Posted by: Katy Manck (BooksYALove) | July 20, 2012 at 10:42 AM
Goodbye, and Thanks for all the fish, Overlord.
You rock.
Posted by: tanita | July 20, 2012 at 12:31 PM