Known for some killer Poetry Friday posts over at her blog, Writing and Ruminating, Kelly Fineman is a children’s writer and poet, as well as a Nerdfighter Extraordinaire, as she was recently dubbed by John Green. In addition to interviewing authors and posting a whole array of info and resources about poetry, Kelly also reviews children’s books, from the classic …

Little Willow joins us again for another review: I review a variety of books at my blog, Bildungsroman. Most are young adult fiction, some are for children, some are for adults, but one thing they all have in common is strength of character. Reaching for Sun by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer definitely has a strong protagonist – a young girl who …

Mary Lee Hahn is one talented lady–not only does she teach fourth and fifth grades, she’s also the author of a book on classroom read-aloud techniques and, along with her colleague Franki Sibberson, she blogs regularly about books for children and young adults at A Year of Reading. Mary Lee wrote a recent overview of Graphic Novels nominee The Plain …

When last year’s Cybils was starting up, Elaine Magliaro quickly joined the Blue Rose Girls blog so she could be eligible to serve on the Poetry panel. Not only did Cybils benefit, she’s since left her indelible ink prints all over the blogosphere with dazzling, witty poetry of her own. She now has her own blog, Wild Rose Reader, but …

For Halloween, what could be better than a spooky book by a "ghost artist"? Our own Jackie Parker has the details at her blog. For a brief time last summer, Finney was able to forget about his doomed future. See, "for a member of the Bleak family the true measure of success is not what is accomplished in LIFE, but …

Many thanks to Cheryl Rainfield, one of our panelists, who’s the first to buy a classified ad here at Cybils. We hope you all clicked on it and visited one of her blogs. She actually has two; the second reviews "Teen books that have something to say", where she has many thoughtful things to say of her own. In today’s …

Today we bring you a review of a title nominated in this year’s middle grade and young adult nonfiction category: Tracking Trash, by Loree Griffin Burns (Amazon link, BookSense link), reviewed by Mindy from Propernoun.net. Mindy was the administrator for this category last year, and is on this year’s nominating committee. She is a Collection Development Librarian at a book …

As someone who blogs primarily about fantasy and science fiction, it’s not often that I review books outside my genre. So I wanted to take this opportunity to share my review of a book that is nominated in the Young Adult category. Song of the Sparrow is based on the Arthurian legends, which would seem to make it fantasy, but …

Today’s review of another picture book comes from Jules of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. It’s called Leaves, by David Ezra Stein: This is a lovely little poem of a picture book (or, as the Publishers Weekly review put it in their starred review, more like a "haiku-like shape," praising Stein for his willingness to let the story assume that …

As Cybils editor, I see a lot of great book blogs, so I feel a bit self-conscious introducing my own. Book Buds is where I react to children’s books in the form of short- to medium-length reviews. With just enough art history learnin’ in me to cause trouble, I critique both words and pictures. It’s not enough to say "this …