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, …
REVIEW
Adventures in Cartooning
I always feel a little weird tooting my own horn on the Cybils blog, but I had to share my review of two of our Cybils graphic novel finalists–little did I know, when I wrote about both of these in the same post, that they'd end up on the short list and I'd have to evaluate them as a Round …
The Inside Scoop on Nominees, Part III
We've got two more blurbs for you, our inquiringly-minded readers, giving you a sneak peek at what it was like for our Round I judges to narrow down such a fantastic (and, in some cases, fantastically huge) field of nominations. Today, check out the story being Fantasy and Science Fiction and Fiction Picture Books. Sheila Ruth, Fantasy and Science Fiction: …
REVIEW
African Acrostics: A Word in Edgeways
Tricia Stohr-Hunt, Round I Poetry judge and blogger at The Miss Rumphius Effect, describes her site as "[t]he blog of a teacher educator discussing poetry, children's literature and issues related to teaching children and their future teachers." But it's so much more than that–including a regular home for Poetry Friday and the Poetry Stretch, an incredible agglomeration of booklists…you'll just …