Inventive, wild, and wonderful–great speculative fiction for kids just keeps on coming! Along with the obvious wizards and aliens, this category includes books with talking animals, time-travel, ghosts, and paranormal abilities, and all the other books that might not have obvious magic or travel to distant planets, but which push past the boundaries of daily life into the realm of the almost certainly impossible…
The two main criteria of the Cybils—excellent writing and the kid appeal—come first and foremost, but in this category we’ll also be looking for the books whose creativity, world building, and characters zing off the pages and into our hearts and minds. We want the books that will set off sparks of imagination and wonder that will last a lifetime in the minds of their readers!
This category is for both Elementary and Middle Grade books; that is, books written for eight- to twelve-year-olds (with a bit of wiggle room at each end).
— Charlotte Taylor