If you're wondering what it takes to pick a fantastic finalist list like the one we had this year for Poetry, take a side trip over to panelist Bruce Black's Wordswimmer blog and check out his roundtable interview with the illustrious blogging and poetry-appreciating panelists: Kristy Dempsey, Kelly Fineman, Sylvia Vardell, and Tricia Stohr-Hunt. As Sylvia put it, "[poets] use …
Interview with Two-Time Cybils Poetry Winner
Our poetry category organizer Kelly Fineman tipped us off to a wonderful interview with this year's Cybils Poetry winner Joyce Sidman over at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Joyce is the author of 2009 Poetry winner Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors as well as 2007 Poetry winner This Is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness. …
How did I miss this?
Look what kind of love BlogHer's Sassymonkey is giving us. She posted a couple weeks ago about us: For many people February 14 is just Valentine's Day. For book bloggers it's something else altogether — it's the day the Cybils winners are announced! What are the Cybils? They just happen to be one of the best book awards out there. …
A Double Dose of Great News!
Kelly Fineman, our wondrous Poetry Organizer, has taken third place in the Writer's Digest Poetry Competition. Her poem is called "Inside the New Mall" and she's jumping up and down over at her blog. Go send her some virtual hugs. Congrats, Kelly! One more bit of news. I entered, ahem, a draft of Chapter 1 of my own unfinished novel …
Cybils Awards Store Now Open!
We have a page for stickers and hi-res images. Phew! A ton of work went into this by several people, yet I still live in constant fear of screwing this up. WE HAVE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE. So, please, be patient. Stickers are, well, sticky. Here's the link to our store. First sticker (minus the red stuff): Second sticker (ditto): …
Aww, You’re Making Us Blush
Shout it from the rooftops: authors love the Cybils! We are so flattered and grateful at the nice things our finalists and winners have been saying on their blogs and websites, and we thought we'd link to a few of the latest posts here. Among the authors sharing the love are: YA Fiction winner Courtney Summers MG Fantasy and Sci-Fi …
The Cybils Are SLJ-Fabulous!
We couldn't be more flattered by Rocco Staino's fabulous article about the Cybils posted at School Library Journal this morning. He leads in by talking about our Short Chapter Books winner Bad to the Bone by Lucy Nolan, but he goes on to talk about all of our wonderful winning titles as well as giving props to tireless Cybils Admin …
The 2009 Cybils Winners
I'm wrapping my brain around the idea that this is our fourth annual awards. Wasn't that blogging fad supposed to be over by now? Shhh … don't tell that to our panelists and judges. They spend a good chunk of their year tap-tapping away on their keyboards, keeping the kidlit world humming with their takes on what makes for a …
REVIEW
The Curious Garden by Peter Brown
Lori Calabrese is not only a Round II judge for the Fiction Picture Books category, she's an author in her own right–of Oh! The Possibilities and the forthcoming The Bug that Plagued the Entire Third Grade. On her blog, she posts about children's books, writing, literacy, and more from the perspective of an author, mother, and–of course–a reader. One of …
Cybils is Flashlight Worthy
Peter is a blogger over at Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations, which runs lists of great books for kids and teens. For the next few days, he's reprinting our finalists list by list, which we really appreciate. Here's the Graphic Novel finals. And here are YA titles. More to come. While you're there, check out some of his other lists. Like, …