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. …

Back, by popular demand — book reviews by our volunteers. Cybils is the place to discover great books and great bloggers, and we’re rounding up a sample of both starting today. As the contest progresses, you can check out which books our panelists are reading and what they think. For now, our organizers have chimed in with their takes on …

A big shout-out to one of our panelists, Loree Griffin Burns, whose Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion (Scientists in the Field) was named a nonfiction honor book in the 2007 Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards for Excellence in Children’s Literature. Go see for yourself and then stop by and congratulate her.

Our apologies to Kris Bordessa, who conducted this interview with Sylvia Long several weeks ago. It fell through the cracks, for which we’re mortally ashamed. An Egg is Quiet, written by Dianna Aston and illustrated by Sylvia Long took top honors for the children’s non-fiction book. The Cybil judges showered praise ("lovely!" "breathtaking!") on this title. With gentle text that …

Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese has taken the world of Graphic Novels by storm.  A finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Printz award, American Born Chinese emerged triumphant as the winner of the 2006 Cybil for Graphic Novels (ages 13 and up) as well.  Laura Atkins, of Tockla’s World of Children’s Literature, interviewed Gene Yang …

Russell Freedman received the first ever Cybils Award in nonfiction for Freedom Walkers (Holiday House), an account of the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott of 1955. What impressed the judges was the way Freedman told the story through the lives of the ordinary men and women, teens and adults who participated. Even the icons of the Civil Rights Movement are portrayed …