Kelly Herold was moved enough to read Robot Dreams twice, which she admits is odd, because there aren’t any actual words in the book. Our Cybils director and co-founder took to heart this story of a dog and a robot who start out as friends until one is forced to desert the other. Varon’s treatment of friendship–and its painful loss–is …
A peek behind the scenes
Maybe you’d like to join us next year at Cybils. Perhaps you’re already volunteering, but curious how the other panels went. Or maybe you want to relive the moment when it all came together and your finalists were, well, finalized. Several of our bloggers have been generous about sharing their experiences and insights this Cybils season. Stacy DeKeyser gives us …
ALA award-winners on the CYBILS short lists
This morning, the American Library Association announced its literary awards for children’s books. As always, there were surprises. What isn’t particularly surprising, however, is that a number of books on the CYBILS short lists have received honors and awards from ALA. –Kelly Fineman, Poetry Organizer Here are the CYBILS titles, in alphabetical order by ALA award name: Caldecott HonorKnuffle Bunny …
Read all about them
Our panelists and judges are busy, busy folks. It’s tough to keep up with them, but here are two newsy tidbits: The Middle Grade panelists had some fun with characters from their favorite books, compiling a Hall of Fame. This is by now a tradition for Little Willow, who compiled one for YA characters last year. Mary Lee & Franki …
REVIEW
Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
Author Kim Baccellia joins us this year as a panelist in Fantasy and Science Fiction, where she was one of the first on this side of the pond to review Incarceron. So far, it’s only available in Britain, but panelists couldn’t resist including it in the short list. Kim gives us a glimpse into its pages: Flinn has no memory …
Apartment Therapy and Cybils
One of the most-talked about topics in the kidlitosphere is how to lure new readers. We all love each other to death, but is our message getting out to regular ol’ Moms and Dads? Here’s a reassuring sign. Ohdeedoh is the blog for Apartment Therapy, which bills itself as a site for "people who care about good design, but happen …
Look who’s excited
Now, that’s what we call enthusiasm. The Japanator website got a bit excited about Yotsuba&! making the finals on our graphic novels list, wouldn’t you say? They’re joined by Newsarama, a GN blog, who posted our list, and Nick Abadzis, who’s pleased to find his Laika included. And we leave this author speechless at her fantasy novel, Northlander, making the …
REVIEW
Billie Standish Was Here
First-time author Nancy Crocker makes our Young Adult short list with a compelling coming-of-age novel about a girl named William Marie Standish, who’s all but ignored by her unloving parents. The book drew rave reviews around the blogosphere, with our own Julie Danielson admiring the author’s skill in weaving a nuanced story around a bare-bones plot: …this novel has an …
AdaptiveBlue and Cybils and you
Anne the Editor here. Lately, I’ve been getting offers from Internet start-ups to test some super widget or other. I said "yes" to AdaptiveBlue, without even knowing it was already spreading like cold germs in a kindergarten. Their SmartLinks (click here for a demo) looked like it would help us with two of Cybils’ goals: fostering a sense of community …
REVIEW: Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!
Anne the Editor here. Cybils must’ve had a record number of books that defied easy categorizing this year. How many graphics were needed before a novel became a graphic novel? At what point does a dramatization of a true story cross over to fiction? But none stumped us more than a collection of 19 monologues and 2 dialogs set in …