Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

It’s finally here! The shortlists for the Cybil Awards have been announced. Head on over to the Cybil site to find out the titles that made the shortlists in each category.

Eisha served on the nominating committee for the Poetry category, and yours truly read the over-one-hundred titles that were nominated in the Picture Book (Fiction) category. Oh twist twist my arm. The work was so onerous for me {insert biting sarcasm here. I loved every minute of it. If you can’t already tell from my picture-book-heavy posts on this here blawg, I’m a Picture Book Luvah}.

Thanks to Kelly at Big A little a and Anne at Book Buds for the very existence of the Cybils and all their work that got us to this point. Eisha and I both enjoyed our committee work and talkin’ titles with all our committee members. ‘Twas an honor.

Happy new year to all.

Okay, so I try to stick to book reviews only, and I’m straying now with this post, but this. must. be. shared, since he is the supreme one and all. Love it.

Hey, check it out… Renee, of Shen’s Books Blog and Renee’s Book of the Day, has her Holiday Books Booktalk podcast up. Wanna hear my squeaky southern self rambling incoherently about Barbara Robinson’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever? Go listen.

Fellow Kid-Lit colleagues, I need a little help.  I am the Childrens/YA Librarian in a smallish public branch library.  I have a 9-year-old female patron who keeps asking me for “romance” books.  But without S-E-X, of course – seriously, she explicitly stated this.  Like I was about to hand over an Elizabeth Lowell novel.  But I digress…

Today I gave her Juliet Dove, Queen of Love by Bruce Coville.  We were also contemplating Princess Academy by Shannon Hale (I haven’t read it, but it’s got the sort of thing she seems to mean when she says romance – princesses and princes), but based on reviews I think it may be a little long, and a little short on the actual princess-getting-together-with-prince.  

The fact is, I’m stronger in YA and picture books than I am at middle grade fiction.  So I thought I’d throw this out to the blogosphere… any ideas?  Fuse #8, Big A little a, Brookeshelf… you guys are awesome at middle grade stuff.  Anyone else?  Whoever comes up with the most titles gets… um… a free set of Edward Tulane postcards.  And my undying affection.

Oh, and I should mention… she’s reading at grade level (4th) – maybe slightly above.

Jules posting here — and on behalf of Eisha. I don’t know if this is Eisha’s favorite holiday — Thanksgiving, that is — but I think it’s probably mine, because it’s the least commercialized and everyone’s not running around all insane trying to buy gifts for those distant (or not-so distant) relatives or co-workers or you-name-it whom they don’t even really like. Instead, you sit down with your friends and/or family or friends who are your family and feast and take a moment to be grateful for what you have. Aw, nice. You don’t have to be all obvious about it, all Tiny-Tim-God-Bless-Us-Everyone about it. Even if you yourself just pause in one quiet moment to take stock of your life’s joys, it’s a nice thing. So, happy Thanksgiving, and in honor of it, I’m going to share a piece of writing I stumbled upon that I had written down years ago in a journal — the words of Thoreau, writing to H.G.O. Blake, once a Unitarian minister, in December of 1856:

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Let me just say up front: Excuse this savagely personal post. I try to stay professional and keep on the topic of book reviews only, but . . .

I have this obscenely overactive work ethic. For the purposes of this blog, that translates into me thinking that I need to post something at least every other day, though Eisha and I never committed to a particular number of posts at particular intervals. But I haven’t posted in a few days and feel fairly worthless towards doing anything productive this week in terms of reading and writing . . . other than this post.

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Actually, they’ve been introduced on plenty of other kidlitosphere blogs, but this is the first time we’re mentioning them here. The blog edition of children’s book awards — pretty exciting!

It all began when the honorable Kelly at Big A little a posed a most thought-provoking question: “This month we’ve seen a spate of book awards, some of which have left us wondering: couldn’t we, the intelligent, savvy members of the kidlitosphere do better? Or, at least, differently?” So, Kelly and Anne Boles Levy of Book Buds inaugurated a new book awards (Blog Edition, V. 1.0, as it were), and then the nominations for a name for these fledgling awards commenced. I humbly offered “The Still Hots” in honor of the brilliant last page of Sendak’s masterpiece (yes, I have probably worked Sendak into 90% of my posts), but that suggestion was mostly in jest, though it has a certain ring to it, eh? Nonetheless, “The Cybils” was chosen as the title for these awards (read here if you’re wondering why), and Stephanie Ford at the Children’s Literature Book Club designed the medal you see here.

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… after the Most Excellent Ms. Ehlert did her thing, Mary Beth Dunhouse of the BPL stepped up to introduce the Nonfiction honors and winner. Although… really, almost all the books were non-fictiony this year, don’t you think? I mean, Mama and Sky Boys in the Picture Book category, and Yellow Star in the Fiction & Poetry category, were all based on real events and/or people. But I digress…

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I know, you’ve all been waiting with baited breath for this. I’m sorry I don’t have pics – I did snap a few with my cute new camera phone, but since I was trying to be surreptitious, and it is only a camera phone, I only have a handful of very small fuzzy indistinct images of people milling around drinking wine, some of whom may be famous authors and illustrators but you can’t really tell. Anyway, you’ll be glad to hear that I was able to avoid any awkward, tearful confrontations with Kate DiCamillo, and that I DID NOT EMBARRASS MYSELF IN FRONT OF ROGER SUTTON.

I did, however, manage to embarrass myself in front of James E. Ransome and Jarrett J. Krosoczka; possibly also in front of Taylor Morrison, Lois Ehlert, and Robin Smith (one of the judges/presenters), and only narrowly escaped embarassing myself in front of M.T. Anderson. Oh, and I discovered that my friends and colleagues are not so much friends-and-colleagues as they are ENABLERS.

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One of the coolest things about doing what I do, where I do it, is that I occasionally get to see real, live, awesome authors and illustrators in person. One such time is the Boston Globe-Hornbook Awards ceremony at the lovely Boston Atheneum, to which all Boston-area children’s librarians are invited every October (at least, I think that’s the deal – maybe we just get invited because our Head of Children’s Services has been on the selection committee in years past… I should investigate). I’ll be attending this evening, along with a few of my fellow child-libs from the other branches. This year, I’m not just going to listen to the speeches and then try to accumulate as many autographed books as possible – I have some very specific goals in mind:

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