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 journal of international children's literature. We're not worthy! We're not worthy!
One of Sylvia's book reviews covered Cybils poetry nominee Dinothesaurus, written and illustrated by Douglas Florian. It's a book of poetry about dinosaur names, which somehow just lend themselves to poems that beg to be read aloud. But, more than simply a book of fun-to-read verses, it's also filled with facts about 18 different dinosaurs and varied, detailed illustrations. According to Sylvia,
Even kids who are not dinosaur fanatics, love the long, crazy, complicated names for dinosaurs. So, we end up with a great book about dinosaurs, as well as a fun book of wordplay poetry.
Click here for the full review.