Our review for the day comes from Cybils veteran panelist Travis Jonker, who blogs at 100 Scope Notes. An elementary school librarian and School Library Journal reviewer, Travis has been reviewing books at his blog for the past 5 years and has participated in Cybils for several of those. This year he's a Round 1 judge for Fiction Picture Books. …

Today's review comes courtesy of Aurora Celeste, a Round 1 panelist for Teen Fantasy and Science Fiction. Appropriately, she blogs at the Young Adult Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, where she reviews a wide range of titles in the genre. Fun Fact: Aurora is an active and award-winning costumer, whose passion is reproducing costumes–mostly sci-fi and fantasy movies and tv shows, …

Our first panelist review of this year's Cybils comes from Round 1 Easy Readers/Short Chapter Books judge Katie Fitzgerald. Katie is a children's librarian and aspiring writer who posts book reviews, themed book lists, and more at Secrets & Sharing Soda. Fun fact: her blog name comes from a line in a Joni Mitchell song. Earlier this year, Katie reviewed …

I've never met David Elzey at Guys Lit Wire, but he must be one hunk of a blogger. Every year, and I mean every year, I break up fights among my (all-female) organizers over him. I saw him first! You had him last year! MEOW. Then there was the year two organizers duked it out while a third went behind …

It's back to book reviews! Today we're beginning a series by Round 2 judges, and all of them will be for titles on our short lists. Please note: these reviews were posted before the finalists came out and are taken from the bloggers' archives. We don't allow Round 2 judges to post new reviews of finalists in their genre during …

*Hat tip to Catherine Nichols for the title of this post, which I blatantly stole. Our panelists had the Herculean task of winnowing down a long list of nominees to this year's batch of finalists. We asked them to fight for their favorites and some of the discussions became the online equivalent of sparring matches. Very, very polite sparring matches, …

We at Cybils hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and there were lots of books under your tree or magically appearing in your Nook/Kindle/iPad or whatever. Welcome back! Today's review is of a book that's kind of a downer, so don't read on if you don't like books about Bad Things That Happen. That's a heckuva lot of YA …

I met Maureen Kearney at Kidlit Con in September and was relieved to find another 'Zonie (short for Arizonan) shivering in what Seattle calls early autumn. Maureen is another Cybils veteran and this year is judging in teen Science Fiction & Fantasy. Her regular gig is at Confessions of a Bibliovore, where she's been doing some brief roundups of the …

I was a kid when New York City had its big blackout in the 1970s. Stories of looting gave the Big Apple a big, black eye for decades. By the time a power outage hit again a few years ago, the city had returned to a more civilized, neighbor-helping-neighbor kind of place. Blackout by John RoccoHyperion Natalia Ortega-Brown reviews a …

The Brown Bookshelf is one of those blogs that I'd long hoped would send us a judge or two. It's a group blog with a strong point of view and is written with verve and conviction. It's main goal is to showcase the many quality books for children and teens by African American authors and illustrators. This year, we're thrilled …