Interview with Adam Gidwitz and Aaron Blank

Editor’s note: Aaron Blank is the producer for The Inquisitor’s Tale audiobook. You can listen to a sample of the book here.  This audiobook is a wonderful example of using more than one narrator. When assessing books such as The Inquisitor’s Tale, how do you decide to use multiple narrator or a single performer?  Aaron: Adam made identifying the characters pretty …

Interview with Laura Shovan

What were you doing when you heard you had won the CYBILS Award for Poetry? I was working on a big revision for my next middle grade novel. One of the judges Tweeted about the award. It was the best Valentine’s Day gift ever. Better than chocolate! This is a LOT of characters to invent and develop. What is your …

Interview with Joshua Khan

Lily is a strong heroine, both determined and intelligent, yet in Shadow Magic both the political power she ostensibly has, and the magical power that’s forbidden to women which she’s beginning to realize she has lots of, are not yet fully hers to wield.  I assume that as the series progress, she will gain more actual power….Was it hard to hold Lily in …

The 2016 Cybils Winners!

There’s not much to say in the way of an intro this year: just our thanks to all the bloggers who judged, authors who wrote, and publishers who supported us again in this year’s endeavor. And on that note, here are this year’s winners, in alphabetical order by category:  Audiobooks The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, the Three Magical Children and Their …

The Winners Are…

Not in this post. But they are chosen and the blurbs are written and we can’t WAIT to share them with you.  Tomorrow. At 9 a.m. Eastern, 6 a.m. Pacific.  Be there. It’s so much better than that commercial roses and chocolate celebration. (Well, maybe not the chocolate, but you get the picture.)

2016 Finalists: What’s Being Said

We love all the reactions we’re seeing on Twitter about the winners, and thought we’d share some of our favorites! Masters of Disguise, Floodwaters & Flames, Plants Can't Sit Still & Sachiko are all @cybils finalists! 🎉 https://t.co/XzPuRIcXc3 — Emily Harris (@emily_harris) January 1, 2017 WOO-HOO! Weekends w/Max & his Dad is a @cybils Early Reader/Chapter Book finalist along with …

The 2016 Finalists

I feel intimidated writing this  post this year; it’s usually the domain of our illustrious co-founder and overlord, Anne Levy. But 2016 has been a hard year for everyone, and that includes Anne. So I’m writing this in her stead. Thank you for being understanding! A few numbers, to begin with: We had 1163 books nominated, across all categories.  Out …

It’s Almost Time!

I don’t know about you, but this whole fall went super fast for me. So when I looked at the calendar and realized it was almost January 1, I couldn’t believe it. Already?! Yes, already.  Tomorrow, bright and early (well, if you live in the Pacific Time Zone), we’ll announce this year’s shortlists.  So very exciting!

When Cybils Judges Hit the Big Time

Former Cybils judge and founder of the Nerdy Book Club, Colby Sharp, has just landed a book deal with Little, Brown.  From the Publisher’s Weekly story:   Sharp is going to expand on the importance of reading and writing by editing an interactive anthology, The Creativity Project, which Little, Brown Books for Young Readers has bought for publication in 2018. The …

Two days! Nominations Closing on Oct 15th

We’re almost done with the public nominations for this year’s Cybils. If you haven’t nominated, NOW is the time! We’ve noticed that there have been a lot of people commenting on blog posts nominating books. While we are happy you’re excited about nominating, nominations in comments will not be counted. You need to fill out the nomination form here.  If your …