Meet the 2019 Cybils Team: Pam Margolis, YA Speculative Fiction Chair

Pam’s been an avid reader all of her life. In fact, she was probably in line for a book when they handed out map skills. Growing up she loved the classics but now that she’s a grown up she has learned to love all genres of books, especially books for kids and teens. Her passion is helping kids find books …

Meet the 2019 Cybils Team: Mel Schuit, Graphic Novels Chair

Mel Schuit is a children’s book author, illustrator, reviewer, and marketer with an MA in Children’s Literature, an MFA in Writing for Children, and a BA in Studio Art. She talks about children’s book illustration and design at Let’s Talk Picture Books, which started as a way for her to catalog the illustration styles and recurrent themes she found in …

Meet the 2019 Cybils Team: Charlotte Taylor, Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction Chair

Charlotte Taylor has been fan of fantasy all her life, and spent her childhood rejecting her sisters’ importunings to come play in favor of peaceful reading. She still spends as much time as possible reading (mostly middle grade speculative fiction, but other genres too, because she wants to read All the Things), but she is hampered her day job as …

Meet the 2019 Cybils Team: Alex Baugh, Middle Grade Fiction Chair

The very first book Alex remembers really loving was Anne of Green Gables, which was then followed by countless others. She has been a Middle Grade Fiction second round judge for the past five years and always forward to participating in the Cybils. She is also a technology geek and originally began teaching Information Technology in school. Eventually, she found …

Meet the 2019 Cybils Team: Bridget Wilson, Poetry Chair

Bridget discovered children’s poetry while taking a children’s literature class in college. It was love at first read. As a youth services librarian, she loves sharing poetry with kids at her libraries. Bridget has served as a Round 1 Panelist for Poetry four times and as a Round 1 Panelist for Elementary/Middle Grade Nonfiction once. Bridget blogs intermittently at What Is …

Meet the 2019 Cybils Team: Reshama Deshmukh, Elementary/Middle Grade Non-fiction Chair

Reshama has been a voracious reader from her earliest years. Born in India, where libraries were scarce, the only way she could lay her hands on the latest books were when her dad used to get her books when he returned from travel abroad. Book exhibitions also gave her an opportunity to get her hands on new and interesting books, …

Meet the 2019 Cybils Team: Heidi Fielder, Easy Reader and Early Chapter Book Chair

Writer and editor Heidi Fiedler has worked on more than 300 books for clients ranging from Target to Barnes & Noble. She does the deep thinking that’s needed to turn an idea into a book that delights and inspires. Whether it’s a poetic picture book, a zippy chapter book, or a kid-friendly take on the physics of time travel, the …

Meet the 2019 Cybils Team: Deb Nance, Fiction Picture Book and Board Book Chair

Books are Deb Nance’s world. She has worked as a teacher and a librarian near Houston, Texas since 1977. She’s been blogging at Readerbuzz for over eleven years. Deb Nance has been an onsite correspondent for BookExpo and she served as a moderator at TweenReads. She built and maintains five Little Free Libraries in her town. Deb has been an …

Meet the 2019 Cybils Team: Melissa Fox, Blog Editor

Melissa has made time in her life for lots of “little” things: a bookseller at an independent bookstore, going back to get her MLIS degree, helping out with the parent organizations (well, the drama department) at the high school, and being a part of the Cybils! Even with all those small commitments, she still manages to find time to (kind-of, …