Sunday, January 8, 2012

TSS: Proudly Announcing the 2011 Cybils Finalists!






Folks, I'm tired.

I've just finished reading 260 Cybils children's fiction picture book nominees. I reviewed over half of them and posted my reviews at Amazon, at Goodreads, at LibraryThing, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on my blog here.

This is the fourth year I've been a Cybils judge. I should have known this was a big job, right?

No, I've always been a judge for the Cybils children's nonfiction picture books. There are (only!) about 80 nonfiction nominees each year in the picture book category. And last year, with my mother being so sick with cancer, I served as a judge in the finalist round. Wasn't that easy?! I just went online to my public library catalog, requested all seven finalists, picked them up from the library after a couple of days, read them a couple of times, tried them out with students at school, and discussed with the other judges our favorites. Easy-peasy.

I feel proud of reading all 260 Cybils fiction picture books. Happily, thanks to kind publishers and wonderful librarians, I was able to read them all.

I almost feel like I've run a marathon and finished. :-)

So, it is with great pride that I announce the 2011 Cybils Children's Fiction Picture Book Finalists:



Blackout
by John Rocco
Hyperion
Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow?
by Susan A. Shea
Blue Apple Books

I Had a Favorite Dress
by Boni Ashburn
Abrams for Young Readers 


I Want My Hat Back
by Jon Klassen
Candlewick Press

Me . . . Jane
by Patrick McDonnell
Little, Brown
Press Here
by Herve Tullet
Chronicle Books

Princess and the Pig, The
by Jonathan Emmett
Walker Books for Young Readers


Here's the complete list of all the 2011 finalists:

Congratulations to all of the finalists and to all the nominees!

And now I'm off to begin reading
 the 2011 Indie Lit nonfiction finalists...a mere five books...but 2,288 pages!

23 comments:

  1. Whoa that is a lot of reading! I love the look of I want my hat back though. It looks brilliant! Good luck for the Indie lit reading. I take my hat off!

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  2. Congratulations on a huge job well done! These all look very captivating...thanks for sharing.

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  3. Kath, you should check out I Want My Hat Back. It's one of my (many) Cybils nominees favorites!

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  4. Reading 260 books certainly feels a lot like running a marathon!

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  5. I've seen some of these at the library where I work, but the one that stands out for some reason is The Princess and the Pig...also I was wondering why you were reading so many children's books recently.

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  6. Princess and the Pig cracked me up. Such a sly story.

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  7. Thank you, thank you for such a great list and choices! I love a good children's book, and there is quite a selection here! They all sound great! and even though 260 books may be a marathon, I bet it was a fun one!

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  8. It was great fun, running and completing this "marathon".

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  9. Wow! That's a lot of picture books - I'd be afraid I'd get them all mixed up in my mind.

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  10. The worst were the ones I had to read and review and then get back to the library. I had a limit of 50 books at the library, so I could not keep books very long.

    So much better when the publisher sent a copy that I could take a little time with....

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  11. I see that you nominated Lost and Found by Shaun Tan. I love that book. Did it make the cut? You have done a lot of hard work culling your immense list down to manageable number. I bet you are excited. Do you get to vote for the winner?

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  13. Lost and Found did not make the cut, sadly, Anne. I don't pick the final winner this year.

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  14. That is a major accomplishment! Kudos to you! :]

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  15. That is an incredible accomplishment! I have wanted to help out with the Cybils, but am glad that I didn't get asked to be a judge this year since the Fall turned out to be much busier in my personal life than I had expected. Good luck with the Indies reads!

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  16. Years ago I read an article about being a judge by someone who'd been one for the Newberry medal. I would still love to do it one year, even though I would have to give up reading anything but YA books for an entire year in order to read everything, since that award is open to all books published in the U.S.

    Last year I was a judge for BBAW. It was fun, but even with just the handfull of blogs I was assigned to review, it took a long time.

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  17. Wow!! That's a lot of books! It seems like you've ended up with a really wonderful selection though so it was well worth it. :D I really appreciate all the effort the Cybils judges go through. I loooooove these lists!!

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  18. Thank you, Alyce. I am looking forward to reading the nonfiction books.

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  19. I always dreamed of being a Bluebonnet judge (Texas Library Association award) but I'm at a K-2 school now and Bluebonnets are only for grades 3-6.

    It's okay. I am very, very happy to have been chosen to be a Cybils judge.

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  20. I love the Cybils lists, too, Lisa. I use them each year to order books for my school library!

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  21. You rock! I love picture books, but I think my head would have exploded if I had tried to read all of those. The cover of The Princess and the Pig intrigues me. Definitely going to check these out.

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  22. It is definitely a marathon effort Debbie. Such a huge achievement. My library only has two- Me, Jane and the dress one. I'll search the others out though. I particularly like the cover of the Klassen one- for some reason that really appeals to me!

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