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 …

Just in time for Poetry Friday, today’s review comes from Kelly Fineman, our Poetry organizer:  Earlier this year, I purchased one of my favorite anthologies of children’s poetry — a Very Big Book called Here’s A Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry, collected by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters, illustrated by Polly Dunbar. If you have a …

Hi, Liz B. here. My blog is "A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy," where I blog about, well, just about everything related to story. This year, I’m involved with both Middle Grade and YA for the Cybils, but I read and discuss other books, as well as TV and movies. I started the blog so I could have …

I’m Jen Robinson, and I blog at Jen Robinson’s Book Page. My blog focuses on promoting a love of books to children and a continued appreciation of children’s books by adults. I’ve had a life-long interest in reading and recommending children’s books, and I wanted to do something constructive with that passion. This year, I’m the middle grade and young …

Over at ReadingYA: Readers’ Rants, my co-blogger TadMack and I write about young adult books that have caught our eye–whether we feel like a formal critique or an informal discussion. It’s the sister site of Finding Wonderland, our writing and literary news blog, and we started both blogs to share our observations and discoveries with our writing group and anyone …

I love giving books to customers that transcend their age categories. There are books in the young adult section that I give to adults just as often as I give to teens, and vice-versa. There are stories hidden in a certain genre that are actually a combination of genres and could easily be placed in two or three other sections. …