Round I YA judge Tirzah Price is also known by her blog name, The Compulsive Reader. She's a seasoned Cybils veteran who posts literary news, updates, and reviews of YA books of all genres, interspersed with plenty of fun stuff like polls and contests. She is also part of the YA lit group blog Teen Tuesday. Earlier this year, she …
REVIEW
Dinothesaurus by Douglas Florian
Round I poetry judge Sylvia Vardell is well loved around the kidlitosphere for her blog Poetry for Children, but you might not know that besides an avid fan of children's poetry, she's also a professor and an author! She's written or co-written a number of books about children's poetry for librarians and teachers, and she's the editor of Bookbird, a …
REVIEW
The Brooklyn Nine by Alan Gratz
Sarah Mulhern of The Reading Zone is definitely a Cybils regular. She is a 6th grade language arts teacher who posts consistently thoughtful and varied reviews of the books she places in her classroom library. She also blogs about writing, teaching, and her classroom…and occasionally monarch butterflies. As a Round I judge for the Middle Grade Fiction category this year, …
REVIEW
A closer look at Claudette Colvin
By now, most of the hardcore bibliophiles know exactly who won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. I think Alicia at LibrariYAn was first out of the gate with a review after the awards announcement. Phillip Hoose's Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice profiles the teenager who preceded the late, great Rosa Parks in refusing to give up her …
Cybils non-fiction list flexes some muscle
Thanks to Susan for an excellent post on the awesome might of the non-fiction list for tween and teen readers this year. She lists all her panelists' reviews so far but first points out how the books are already attracting attention: Two of the five finalists for the National Book Award in Young People's Literature were nonfiction titles: Claudette Colvin: Twice …
REVIEW
Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell
We may be well past Halloween, but is there ever a bad time for a good ghost story? Nettle of the cleverly named The Muse, Amused–a Round I panelist for MG/YA Fantasy and Sci-Fi–reviews not only ghost stories but a whole array of YA books at her blog. The ghost story in question for today, though, is Cybils FSF nominee …
Some insights from a panelist …
Hat tip to Sheila for passing along a link to some fascinating musings from a panelist with the middle grade Science Fiction/Fantasy list. Critique de Mr. Chompchomp notes the reliance of Fantasy authors on magic doodads (trivia note: dubbed "Macguffins" by none other than Alfred Hitchcock). He spots a trend toward one item in particular: But there is a general …
Annual Beg-For-Money Post
I look forward to this post every year about as much as I await the next 40-something birthday. I grit my teeth and suffer through it. I remind myself it could be worse — I could be getting another C-section. So *holds breath* here goes … Truthfully, Cybils has very few financial needs. For the last two years, we've bought …
REVIEW
The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
Travis Jonker of the blog 100 Scope Notes is definitely a familiar face around the Cybils, and this year he's a Round I panelist for Fiction Picture Books. His blog covers news and reviews from the world of children's literature, from the perspective of an elementary school librarian. He also reviews for School Library Journal. There was just no way …
REVIEW
Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians
Mama Librarian (aka Maggi Idzikowski), one of our Round I panelists for Graphic Novels this year, has a fun and unique ratings system for the books she reviews on her site. Not only does she look at Illustrations and Personages, but she moves beyond those to consider Wordsmithing, Mesmerizitude, and just plain Awesomeness. One of our Cybils-nominated titles that got …