You've no doubt heard by now that the American Library Association's annual Youth Media Award winners were announced yesterday. What you might not have noticed is that a number of our own Cybils finalists were honored during the awards: Dark Emperor by Joyce Sidman (Poetry): Newbery Honor We Are in a Book by Mo Willems (Easy Readers): Geisel Honor Ship …
REVIEW
The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe by Loree Griffin Burns
Today's featured review comes from longtime kidlit (and adult lit) reviewer Colleen Mondor, Round II judge in the Middle Grade/YA Nonfiction category. Colleen blogs at Chasing Ray as well as being a columnist for Bookslut. Among her many kidlitosphere activities are the Blog Blast Tours–a biannual weeklong festival of author/illustrator interviews–and the What a Girl Wants series featuring YA authors. …
REVIEW
Plain Kate by Erin Bow
Round II Fantasy and Science Fiction judge Steph Su is mistress of the blog Steph Su Reads, which boasts over 1500 followers and is a great place to find in-depth MG and YA book reviews, author interviews, YA literature news, and other related information. A few months ago, Steph took a look at Teen SFF finalist Plain Kate by Erin …
Cybils Author Love!
Ever since posting our finalist lists, we've been incredibly flattered at the outpouring of author Cybils love on blogs, Twitter and elsewhere. Here's a sampling of some of the kudos we've noticed: Jeannine Atkins, Poetry category finalist, blogged about us, saying "what great company to be in." YA authors had a lot to tweet about: click the links to find …
REVIEW
Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer
Kelly Fineman, our poetry category organizer and a Round II judge, is a woman of many talents. Besides being an incredibly thoughtful and detailed reviewer and blogger, she's also a writer and poet who was recently featured in the poetry anthology Breaking Waves along with the likes of Ursula K. LeGuin. One of the Cybils finalists Kelly read and reviewed …
Our hard-working panelists
Three cheers for the many bloggers who read through a stack of more than 1,200 books this Cybils season. Our panelists slaved through the autumn months and past Christmas to get a short list in on time. Everyone worked hard. I got ZERO complaints of a panelist vanishing mid-season or dropping out of discussions. Just the opposite — organizers universally …
A few bits of 2010 Cybils trivia
The finalists are out and we're bidding a fond farewell to the rest of the nominees. But before we move on, here's a few factoids about all the books that somebody loved enough to nominate. Total nominations: 1,285 Percent read by at least one panelist: 98% Percent read by at least two panelists: 94% Only 24 titles weren't read at …
Welcome to the 2010 Cybils awards
Yes, it's officially 2011 but we're still drooling over the best books of 2010. Check out our finalists. Winners to be announced on Valentine's Day. More about us here.
2010 Finalists
Can you believe this is our fifth list of finalists? Yes, we’re five years old. This year, we were all a tad rushed as we crossed the finish line. If you spot problems on any of the pages, please list them in comments below. Meantime, a hearty thanks and Happy New Year to all our panelists, who once again gave …