Review
“Rival” by Sara Bennett Wealer

Stacked blogger Kelly Jensen recently announced she's read her 230th book this year. If that's not enough to make the rest of us feel almost illiterate, then consider this: she also writes some of the meatiest reviews of those books ever committed to pixels. Don't click on her site if you're in a rush, unless you're bookmarking it for later. …

Now that your NaNoWriMo masterpiece is nearly done …

…it's time to send your baby out into the world. Or at least the first 250 words. My own YA manuscript, "The Temple of Doubt" was discovered thanks to a Gotham Writers' Workshop contest that's now become an annual event. I came in fifth, which was enough to nab me a wonderful agent. There's only two more days until the …

The absolute last word on bookmarks

They arrived earlier this week. That's a nearly 3-month delay from when I reordered them. Must be some kind of record. Aargh. And just in time for it to be 2012; making the bookmarks even more dated. Double aargh. Anyway, if you requested 'em, you're getting 'em. I'll stand in line along with the rest of the world at the …

Review
“Wonderstruck” by Brian Selznick

Take a sec to pat yourselves on the back, Cybilians (*pat*pat*), for being one of the first literary awards to go all multi-media while others were still saying "graphic what?" Alysa Stewart joins this forward-looking bunch of judges this year in Graphic Novels. She contributes to everead, just one of five blogs listed in her Blogspot profile (wow … Alysa, …

Annual pathetic plea for money

Sigh. It's that time of year again, when I remind you of our fabulous Amazon Affiliate thingee and plead with you to do your holiday shopping by clicking on our site first. It's gotten a little dire around here. We (okay, I) haven't ordered the 2010 awards yet because we haven't had the money. I do have the money now, …

Completely unrelated to book blogging

A childhood friend of mine has just been diagnosed for the FIFTH time with cancer, and she's taken my advice and begun a blog. She's called it You're Crying on My Cashmere, which pretty much sums her up.  She's one of the co-founders of the Young Survival Coalition and if she says she's going to "kick cancer's a–," well, she …

Review
“Invisible Inkling” by Emily Jenkins

The rules about who can or can't judge for Cybils are designed to be flexible. Some people can maintain their blogging schedule the way marathon runners keep to a tight workout routine. We love those people, but we're not all marathoners. So Cybils isn't fussy about when you started your site. We're happy to make space for a blogger like …

Review
“Press Here” by Herve Tullet

We've been accused of having too many librarians here at Cybils. Is that actually possible? If we lost our librarians, we'd be missing out on people like Travis Jonkers, who brings a breezy, personable writing style to his book reviews. Travis blogs at 100 Scope Notes and also reviews for School Library Journal. Picture books are his specialty and he's …

Review
“Daughter of Smoke and Bone” by Laini Taylor

Who better to highlight today for Fantasy & Science Fiction than our own illustrious Sheila Ruth? If you're a fan of the genre, you've probably already bookmarked her blog, Wands and Worlds. Sheila's one of Cybils' founders, signing up right after the idea was born. She's done a ton of stuff behind the scenes, but that would require several more …

Review
“The Big Crunch” by Pete Hautman

Leila Roy has the most awesome name for a book blog ever, Bookshelves of Doom. But her reviews are the opposite of scary. She describes them as a personal response to what she reads, noting "highbrow intellectual critiques do not live here." Instead, she's turned her long-running blog into a forum for the young adult books she adores, and her …