First off, congrats! We adored The Fog Diver. Can you tell us a bit about how you came up with the idea for the book?It’s the same old story you’ve heard a hundred times: I was trying to write about pirate raccoons. I wasn’t making much progress though, until I went for a walk one morning in a misty field. The fog …
List Fun: Favorite Series for Beginning Readers
Some series are so beloved they are recognized by Cybils in some form every single year! Every eligible book published to date in the series listed below has been nominated for Cybils in the Easy Readers/Early Chapter Books category. –Katie Fitzgerald, Story Time SecretsEasy Readers/Early Chapter Books category organizer Bink and Gollie by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee This series …
Interview with Julie Paschkis
First off, congrats! We adored Flutter and Hum. Can you tell us a bit about how you came up with the idea for the book?I started to learn Spanish when I was illustrating Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People which was written by Monica Brown. I illustrated that book with words and pictures and I fell in love with Spanish. …
List Fun: 10 Cybils Finalists/Winners that Also Received ALA Awards
I happen to love awards. All the awards. I like following the hype and buzz and then seeing if my favorite (or one I’ve at least seen or read) wins. So, I suppose, it’s no surprise that one of my favorite things to do every year is compare the Cybils outcome and see how they fared against the “big” awards, …
Interview with MiniLab, Creators of Professor Astro Cat’s Solar System
First off, congrats! We adored Professor Astro Cat’s Solar System. Can you tell us a bit about how you came up with the idea for the app? Did one person take the lead, or was this a team effort? Thank you, we were so delighted to win a Cybils! The whole Professor Astro Cat story began with the book, Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers …
Would You Like to Help Contribute to the Cybils Blog?
You would? Terrific! We had such a good time with the book lists that were submitted last year, that we would like to run the feature again. We will begin in March, running posts once a week through the summer. What we need from you is a themed list (you can always follow the link to last year’s posts to …
The 2015 Winners: What’s Being Said
One of our favorite things is seeing all the happy people on Twitter after the Cybils announcements. Here’s a sampling of the love that’s been pouring out the past couple of days. Thank you so very much, @cybils committee. I am beyond honored. I'm just so thrilled, thank you! — Nova Ren Suma (@novaren) February 14, 2016 @JanaTheTeacher @JonArNoMore @cybils …
The 2015 Cybils WINNERS!
Happy Cybils Day! As always, we want to thank all our judges for their reading, discussing, and ultimately deciding on our fantastic winners. And to our organizers who rose to the challenge of wrangling said judges, making sure everything ran smoothly, on top of everything else that was going on in life. (Life, it does get in the way of …
REVIEW: Infandous
Young Adult Fiction finalist title Infandous by Elana K. Arnold takes center stage in today’s featured blog review, which comes courtesy of Kirkus Reviewer and inveterate Cybil-ite Leila Roy. Leila, who blogs at Bookshelves of Doom, was a Round 1 judge this year in YA Fiction, and back in the spring she posted about Infandous for Kirkus and gave it …
REVIEW: Listen, Slowly
Round 1 judge Debbie Tanner of The Book Search is a former classroom teacher, current elementary school librarian, who created her site and blog as a way to help people find books that match the skills they want to teach. A few months ago she reviewed Middle Grade Fiction finalist Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai, the National Book Award-winning author …