An avid reader for as long as she can remember, Melissa’s true claim to fame is having read the highest total number of pages in the fourth grade. (Second only to her best friend.) Ever since then, she’s had her nose stuck in a book (it really doesn’t matter what the genre is), often letting mundane things such as homework or housework go by the wayside in order to finish yet another chapter. (People are shocked when she tells them she reads 100+ books a year, and yet she feels like it’s never enough.)
Melissa has been involved in the Cybils since 2008, serving on first- and second-round panels of both Middle Grade and Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction. It seems she cannot escape the fourth grade, which is just fine with her.
When she’s not reading middle grade fiction or driving one of her four daughters somewhere, she’s blogging at Book Nut or selling books at the local independent bookstore, Watermark Books, where she’s (no surprise) the “children’s book specialist” (read: the staff member who actually gets excited about kidlit).
She’s excited to be a part of the Cybils team this year as blog editor.