Pssst!by Adam RexHarcourt Children’s BooksBuy From Amazon | Buy from BookSense Pssst! is a funny, light-hearted fantasy that uses snappy text and surreal post-modern oil-and-acrylic illustrations to tell the tale of a girl who visits a zoo with crafty animals who all want something from her. This results in a surprise ending and one of the year’s most unforgettable illustrated …
2007 Poetry Finalists
Animal Poemswritten by Valerie Worth, illustrated by Steve JenkinsFarrar, Strauss & Giroux The poems about twenty-three different animals (some common and some very unusual) are told using free verse–not a typical choice in collections for children these days (at least not when it’s the sole type of verse). And these poems are spectacular in their use of imagery and metaphor. …
2007 Middle Grade Finalists
A Crooked Kind of Perfectby Linda UrbanHarcourtBuy from Amazon | Buy from BookSense "I teach middle school, and sometimes I find that I have more choices for my readers who like edgy YA stories than I do for those kids who read well but aren’t quite ready for teenager issues. A Crooked Kind of Perfect is a perfect kind of …
Short lists: the long and short of it
Tomorrow is the first of our finalist announcements. I think I’ll torture you a little. Some trivia about the lists, but no hints: Two of them have grown to eight seven, and another to seven, eight, instead of last year’s five;* The Fantasy/Science Fiction list has split in two by age group, with five in each; There are a goodly …
REVIEW: Dueling Beowulfs
Perhaps because of the release of the movie, we had not one, but TWO graphic novel retellings of Beowulf nominated for a Cybil Award this year: Beowulf: Monster Slayer by Paul D. Storrie and Ron Randall (Graphic Universe/Lerner Publishing) and Beowulf by Gareth Hinds (Candlewick Press). In her comparison review of the two titles, Mary Lee Hahn of A Year …
Who are you?
We’re conducting an instant poll. Are you: A Cybils panelist up to your eyeballs in books, sweating that deadline; An author, illustrator or fan breathlessly awaiting the results; A random Googler trying to figure out what in heck is a Cybils; An early New Year’s reveler drunkenly landing on the wrong page; Another blogger wondering how you can get in …
REVIEW: Paint the Wind by Pam Munoz Ryan
Camille blogs at Book Moot, answering the perennial question, "Where are the GOOD books?" Book Moot has been around since 2004, and is one of the most authoritative blogs in the Kidlitosphere. Camille writes about a little bit of everything, from classics that she has never read to her experiences in booktalking to her policy of asking kids for their …
REVIEW: Greetings from Planet Earth by Barbara Kerley
Hi. Kelly, here. Director of the Cybils, editor of The Edge of the Forest, and blogger over at Big A little a. Sadly, I’m not on any panel this year. I chose instead to work behind the scenes and I miss the animated discussions of a nominating panel. Sigh. Still, I’ve been lucky enough to read many of the Cybils-nominated …
REVIEW: The Silenced by James Devita
What can we say about Tadmack (Tanita S. Davis) that will do justice to her awesomeness? Let’s see…Her first novel is coming out soon. She’s wicked smart and shares her reviews and views with us over at Reading YA: Readers’ Rants and Finding Wonderland. (She co-blogs with the equally cool Sarah Stevenson, our Graphic Novels organizer.) And, according to insider …
Happy Holidays!
We’ve all got our noses stuck in books these days, but we’re never too busy to wish all our volunteers, supporters and authors and illustrators a peaceful, joyous and memorable holiday season. Thanks especially to those of you who did a little Christmas shopping via Amazon after clicking here. It all adds up, and we’re grateful for the help. …