Happy Cybils Day!
October 1st, 2007 by Eisha and Jules
It’s here! The day you’ve all been waiting for! The 2007 Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards have officially begun! Here’s the official press release, courtesy of Editor and Co-Founder Anne Boles Levy of Book Buds:
Will Harry Potter triumph among critical bloggers? Will novels banned in some school districts find favor online?
With 90 volunteers poised to sift through hundreds of new books, the second annual Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards launches on Oct. 1 at www.cybils.com. Known as the Cybils, it’s the only literary contest that combines both the spontaneity of the Web with the thoughtful debate of a book club.
The public’s invited to nominate books in eight categories, from picture books up to young adult fiction, so long as the book was first published in 2007 in English (bilingual books are okay too). Once nominations close on Nov. 21, the books go through two rounds of judging, first to select the finalists and then the winners, to be announced on Valentine’s Day 2008.
Judges come from the burgeoning ranks of book bloggers in the cozy corner of the Internet called the kidlitosphere. They represent parents, homeschoolers, authors, illustrators, librarians and teens.
The contest began last year after blogger Kelly Herold (http://kidslitinformation.blogspot.com) expressed dismay that while some literary awards were too snooty – rewarding books kids would
seldom read – others were too populist and didn’t acknowledge the breadth and depth of what’s being published today.
“It didn’t have to be brussel sprouts versus gummy bears,” said Anne Boles Levy, who started Cybils with Herold. “There are books that fill both needs, to be fun and profound.”
Last year’s awards prompted more than 480 nominations, and this year’s contest will likely dwarf that. As with last year’s awards, visitors to the Cybils blog (http://dadtalk.typepad.com/cybils) can leave their nominations as comments. There is no nomination form, only the blog, to keep in the spirit of the blogosphere that started it all.
See you Oct. 1!
For further info:
Anne Boles Levy
anne (at) bookbuds (dot) net
We’re both participating as Category Organizers and Panelists this year. Jules is organizing the Picture Books Category, as well as serving on the Nominating Panel, along with these distinguished bloggers:
Marcie Flinchum Atkins (World of Words)
Annie Teich (Crazy for Kids Books)
Cheryl Rainfield
Pam Coughlan (MotherReader)
The Picture Books Judging Panel is an equally fabulous quintet of kidlitophiles:
Mitali Perkins (Mitali’s Fire Escape)
Nikki Tate (Work in Progress)
Gail Wilson (Through the Studio Door)
Barbara Johansen Newman (Cats and Jammers Studio)
Stacey Shubitz (Two Writing Teachers)
Eisha is mixing it up a little. She’s heading up the Nonfiction Picture Books category, which is peopled by an excellent collection of kidlit all-stars:
Nominating Panel:
Andrea Ross (Just One More Book!!)
Emily Beeson (Whimsy Books)
Tricia Stohr-Hunt (The Miss Rumphius Effect)
Fiona Bayrock (Books and ‘Rocks)
Jennifer Schultz (Kiddosphere)
Judging Panel:
Chris Barton (Bartography)
Jackie Merchant (Tiny Treasury)
Adrienne Mason (Tough City Writer)
Becky Bilby (In the Pages)
Adrienne Furness (What Adrienne Thinks About That)
But Eisha’s also serving on the Nominating Panel for Young Adult Fiction, headed by the utterly wonderful Jackie Parker (Interactive Reader). Their fabbity-fab fellow panelists are:
Stacy DeKeyser
Trisha (The YaYaYas)
Anne Heidemann (Librarianne)
Charlotte Taylor (Charlotte’s Library)
Becky Laney (Becky’s Book Reviews)
Want to know more about who’s doing what? Check out the Panelists list at the Cybils site. Want to nominate some books? Go here. You get one vote per category. Use them wisely!
May the best books win!
I am in awe.
In the days (back in the Cretaceous) when I was writing an every other weekly book review column for the local newspaper, and later a monthly column for the Western Mass regional library system where I live, and reviews for the NY Times and others, I thought I knew a lot about what was being published.
But my small review ouvre pales beside the bloggers and CYBILS nominators.
You all rock!
And in a children.s book world where too many publishers are looking at the bottom line rather than the text of the
mss. submitted to them, you are keeping us all honest.
Read on!
Jane Yolen
Aw! Thanks, Ms. Yolen. You rock pretty hard yourself!