Greetings, fellow bookworms. Our sixth season culminates with a new list of our favorite books of 2011, the ones that kids couldn't put down and adults couldn't refuse. We don't want Mom frowning or the Librarian to catch any flak, after all. One way to look at the Cybils is that instead of telling kids what we think they should …
Cybils ends tonight!
The moment is almost here. Instead of editing the blurbs for the winning titles, I spent my last day of the 2011-12 Cybils season in a courtroom filling out a jury questionnaire. I did my civic duty and am now free to finish the post, which goes up at one minute after midnight my time. Arizona exists in a parallel …
A mountain of fountain pens
This was the scene in my living room the other week as I finally sent out a huge batch of fountain pens for the 2009 Cybils. Yes, you read that right, the 2009 awards just went out. There were various reasons for the delays: I still don't even have all the addresses I need. The 2010 awards are next and …
Welcome, Scottsdale Business + Life
If you're coming here from Scottsdale Business + Life magazine, welcome aboard! I'm grateful to editor Elizabeth Hughes for her flattering profile of me. (See page 22.) Please feel free to learn more about us, whether you're visiting us for business or pleasure. As for our regular readers … squeee! I've been profiled in a magazine. Enjoy!
Monday Monday
Not my favorite day of the week. I've already made one boo-boo. I was deleting comment spam (how much do I hate those people? Honestly, if you want to peddle your knock-off Uggs, buy a freaking ad!) and I accidentally deleted a legitimate comment. If it's yours, please repost it. Sorry! Also, our fabulous teen nonfiction organizer, Gina Ruiz, is …
Review
Feynman by Jim Ottaviani
I've never met David Elzey at Guys Lit Wire, but he must be one hunk of a blogger. Every year, and I mean every year, I break up fights among my (all-female) organizers over him. I saw him first! You had him last year! MEOW. Then there was the year two organizers duked it out while a third went behind …
Review
The Shattering by Karen Healey
It's back to book reviews! Today we're beginning a series by Round 2 judges, and all of them will be for titles on our short lists. Please note: these reviews were posted before the finalists came out and are taken from the bloggers' archives. We don't allow Round 2 judges to post new reviews of finalists in their genre during …
A few more
Author reactions are still trickling in as they get word they made the Cybils finals. Here's the original post on that. Add to that Stephanie Perkins typing a giant Eeeeep! after learning Anna and the French Kiss was shortlisted in Young Adult Fiction: Oh, man! This is the biggest honor that Anna has received, and I couldn't be more over-the-moon. …
The ones that got away*
*Hat tip to Catherine Nichols for the title of this post, which I blatantly stole. Our panelists had the Herculean task of winnowing down a long list of nominees to this year's batch of finalists. We asked them to fight for their favorites and some of the discussions became the online equivalent of sparring matches. Very, very polite sparring matches, …
RIFfing with Cybils
I'm a big fan of Reading is Fundamental, and not just because I've met leader Carol Rasco and she's as amazing as you'd expect. She's one part missionary, one part Southern Belle and about 50 parts Energizer Bunny. RIF puts books in the hands of kids who really need them, kids like me when I was wee. I have some …