I am a sentimental fool. I just am. I refuse to cry at funerals because I think I should be all stoic, even when my heart is breaking. But when I hear the words "thank you," I start to sob all over myself. It's embarrassing. Who does this to be thanked? Not me. I do it to fill up the …
Big hugs …
… to all our hard-working panelists, who slaved these last few months to plow through more than 1,200 books. You folks are amazing! Cybils couldn't exist without all of you. I know your own blogs suffered, so here's a little something I'd like to do for all of you. If you were a Round 1 judge this year, I bet …
The 2011 Cybils Finalists
This was the year the Kindle caught Fire, the Nook fought for its niche, Borders went belly up and ebooks overtook their dead tree cousins for good. But for us here at Cybils, it was another year of reading, blogging and more reading. Whether on paper or in pixels, we found plenty of stories worth sharing with the world. By …
Enjoy your last glimmer of 2011
… because we intend to ring 2012 in with a bang. Yep, it's our very own Cybils tradition of rousing you from your New Year's celebrations with the publication of our short lists. Tune in at one minute past the stroke of midnight (Mountain time). That's 2:01 am Eastern and 11:01 pm Pacific. On behalf of all of us here …
2011 Finalists: Nonfiction for Tweens & Teens
Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart by Candace Fleming Schwartz and Wade Books Nominated by: Monica Edinger Amelia Earhart was America’s most famous woman pilot in the 1930s. She broke speed and distance records and constantly looked for new challenges as aviation technology advanced. She was quite a character: stubborn, willful, courageous and smart, but also prone …
Cybils by the numbers
I post our numbers just about every year, and every year somebody gets mad at me. Apparently, I don't include enough disclaimers because I assume facts speak for themselves. So I have included some important reminders this time for the sake of clarity. Total eligible books nominated: 1,289 Disclaimer: Yours wasn't eligible because a) it came out in the wrong …
2011 Finalists: Young Adult Fiction
Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins Dutton Juvenile Nominated by: Melissa Fox Perkins’ Anna and the French Kiss marries romance, friendship and growing up with the delights of the Seine, macaroons and cinemas in the City of Lights. Picked for the off-beat charms of the book’s namesake, Anna, and the deft handling of a budding romance, Anna has the ability to melt …
2011 Finalists: Poetry
Cousins of Clouds: Elephant Poems by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer Clarion Books Nominated by: Amy @ Hope Is the Word Poet Paul Muldoon said, “One will never again look at a birch tree, after the Robert Frost poem, in exactly the same way.” Readers of Tracy Vaughn Zimmer’s Cousins of Clouds can make a similar argument, because they will probably never …
2011 Finalists: Nonfiction Picture Books
All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon Atheneum Nominated by: Kate Coombs Just when you thought the world had enough books about the water cycle, along comes this fresh poetic treatment to make you say “Wow.” Lyon laces the sparse, tightly written text with delicious language surprises as she succinctly explains where water comes from and where …
2011 Finalists: Middle Grade Fiction
Darth Paper Strikes Back: An Origami Yoda Book by Tom Angleberger Amulet Nominated by: Madelyn Rosenberg Read this you must. The students of Ralph McQuarrie Middle School are back in the sequel to Tom Angleberger’s best selling middle grade novel The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, last year’s Cybils winner in this category. In Darth Paper, our hero, Dwight is …