The young Speculative Fiction readers of today are lucky, with hundreds of great new books every year to pick from! Speculative Fiction encompasses everything that isn’t real. Along with wizards and aliens, it includes talking animals, time-travel, ghosts, and paranormal abilities, and all the other books that might not have obvious magic or travel to distant planets, but which push past the boundaries of daily life into the realm of the almost certainly impossible…
As well as the two main criteria of the Cybils—the excellent writing and the kid appeal—we’ll be looking for the books whose creativity, world building, and characters zing off the pages and into our hearts and minds. We want the books that will set off sparks of imagination and wonder in the minds of their readers that will last a lifetime!
This category is for both Elementary and Middle Grade books; that is, books written for eight- to twelve-year-olds (with a bit of wiggle room at each end).