A few weeks ago, we shared three goals that our Board set for its 2024 agenda. In this post we identified several that relate to changes in our award. With the 2024 CYBILS Awards season starting soon, we want to share more detail about several of those changes. Objective: Improve book access and reading volume issues Year in and year …
Book Reviews: #CYBILS2023 Early Chapter Book Finalists
Here we are, friends! It seems only appropriate that Early Chapter Books be the “final chapter” in our posts sharing judges reviews of 2023 CYBILS Awards finalists and winners. There are a few familiar series and new faces, too. These stories also welcome young readers into stories that may be comfortable and fun, and others that will expose them to …
Announcing the 2023 CYBILS Awards Winners
Before we say “congratulations,” we want to shout out a big thanks to everyone who helped make the 2023 CYBILS Awards another great year! 💞 THANK YOU 💞 We can’t say enough about our judges … who can’t say enough about the great books you sent us for consideration. We were thrilled to have many books with positive representation that …
CYBILS 2023 Easy Reader & Early Chapter Book Finalists
Easy Readers Bear and Bird: The Picnic and Other StoriesJarvisCandlewick PressNominated by: Linda Baie Bear and Bird are the best of friends. So best of friends, in fact, that they would rather make the other happy than always tell the truth. Is it wrong to lie to your friends? What if your lie is to protect their feelings? Bear and …
Announcing the 2023 CYBILS Awards Finalists
We may not be the first to wish you a Happy New Year, but we are very excited to be the first to tell you about the 2023 CYBILS Awards finalists! Our judges read more than 1,240 books across nine categories and three audiences. In some categories – like Graphic Novels, Nonfiction, and Poetry – judges were reading all the …
#CYBILS2023 Books by Previous Winners
Turning 18 has made us a bit nostalgic … and yet looking forward, too. That got us thinking … wouldn’t it be fun to see how many 2023 CYBILS Awards nominees are written by previous winners? So we dug into the archives to find which CYBILS Awards winners of yore who have new books being considered this year. Quite a …
2023 CYBILS Judges: Books for New Readers Panels
Easy readers are designed for kids to build vocabulary (e.g., “sight words”) and practice their reading. They are leveled, with controlled vocabularies. They are commonly parts of series with reading-related titles, such as “Step into Reading” or “I Can Read” and they can usually be identified by their large type, simple sentence structure, and colorful illustrations on every page. Compared …
Now Read This! #Cybils2021 Needs You
As we mentioned in our last post, what powers the CYBILS Awards is a passion to engage kids and teens with amazing books that have just the right balance of literary merit and kid appeal. By extension, that means igniting the spark that creates a love of reading. Easy Readers and Early Chapter books are the stories that bring the …
Backlist Book List: #STEM + #DiverseBooks For Young Creators
In 2019, Frankie Sparks and the Class Pet by Megan Frazer Blakemore won the Cybils Award in the Early Chapter Book. In selecting Frankie Sparks as a finalist, the panelists said: … This promising first book in a series will have children learning about animals, design thinking, and emotional intelligence while turning the pages to meet the new pet. …
REVIEW: Sofia Valdez and the Vanishing Vote
Today’s blogger review brings us back to the Early Chapter Books category, with a peek at finalist title Sofia Valdez and the Vanishing Vote by Andrea Beaty and illustrated by David Roberts: In this latest title in “The Questioneers” chapter book series, Sofia’s teacher announces that the class can vote on a pet for the class. The class narrows the …