Kelly Herold was moved enough to read Robot Dreams twice, which she admits is odd, because there aren’t any actual words in the book. Our Cybils director and co-founder took to heart this story of a dog and a robot who start out as friends until one is forced to desert the other. Varon’s treatment of friendship–and its painful loss–is …

Author Kim Baccellia joins us this year as a panelist in Fantasy and Science Fiction, where she was one of the first on this side of the pond to review Incarceron. So far, it’s only available in Britain, but panelists couldn’t resist including it in the short list. Kim gives us a glimpse into its pages: Flinn has no memory …

First-time author Nancy Crocker makes our Young Adult short list with a compelling coming-of-age novel about a girl named William Marie Standish, who’s all but ignored by her unloving parents. The book drew rave reviews around the blogosphere, with our own Julie Danielson admiring the author’s skill in weaving a nuanced story around a bare-bones plot: …this novel has an …

Anne the Editor here. Cybils must’ve had a record number of books that defied easy categorizing this year. How many graphics were needed before a novel became a graphic novel? At what point does a dramatization of a true story cross over to fiction? But none stumped us more than a collection of 19 monologues and 2 dialogs set in …

Perhaps because of the release of the movie, we had not one, but TWO graphic novel retellings of Beowulf nominated for a Cybil Award this year: Beowulf: Monster Slayer by Paul D. Storrie and Ron Randall (Graphic Universe/Lerner Publishing) and Beowulf by Gareth Hinds (Candlewick Press). In her comparison review of the two titles, Mary Lee Hahn of A Year …

Camille blogs at Book Moot, answering the perennial question, "Where are the GOOD books?" Book Moot has been around since 2004, and is one of the most authoritative blogs in the Kidlitosphere. Camille writes about a little bit of everything, from classics that she has never read to her experiences in booktalking to her policy of asking kids for their …

Hi. Kelly, here. Director of the Cybils, editor of The Edge of the Forest, and blogger over at Big A little a. Sadly, I’m not on any panel this year. I chose instead to work behind the scenes and I miss the animated discussions of a nominating panel. Sigh. Still, I’ve been lucky enough to read many of the Cybils-nominated …

What can we say about Tadmack (Tanita S. Davis) that will do justice to her awesomeness? Let’s see…Her first novel is coming out soon. She’s wicked smart and shares her reviews and views with us over at Reading YA: Readers’ Rants and Finding Wonderland. (She co-blogs with the equally cool Sarah Stevenson, our Graphic Novels organizer.) And, according to insider …

Writer J.L. Bell is a true fan of fantasy, and not just L. Frank Baum. Though he’s the editor of Oziana, creative magazine of the International Wizard of Oz Club, he’s also an Assistant Regional Advisor in the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators–and he’s a blogger to boot, taking part in this year’s judging panel for Graphic Novels. …