The 2012 Cybils Finalists!

So at last I can drop this tiresome coyness and reveal my Cybils favorites.

The 2012 Cybils finalists have been announced!

Take a look:

Book Apps
Easy Readers/Short Chapter Books
Fantasy and Science Fiction (Middle Grade)
Fantasy and Science Fiction (Young Adult) 
Fiction Picture Books 
Graphic Novels
Middle Grade Fiction
Non-Fiction: Middle Grade & Young Adult 
Non-Fiction Picture Books 
Poetry
Young Adult Fiction

I served on the nonfiction picture book panel this year, reading 98 of the 100 nominated books. (BTW, I'm still on the waiting lists of three libraries for the remaining two books.) What a glorious time I had. I read biographies, books about Matisse and Gutenberg and the founder of the Girl Scouts and the man who created Batman. I read books about animals, books about bats and pufflings, dolphins and beetles. I read books about history, books about the Boston Tea Party and the Underground Railroad and an all-brothers baseball team. I read math books, books about time and about symmetry and about big numbers. I read books that almost defy categorization, books about  houses around the world and celebrations around the world and endearments around the world.

Finally I chose my favorite twenty-five.

It would have been lovely if the other panelists had liked the same books I did, but, no, that would have been much too easy. Instead, we had a wrestling match, debating to the very end the merits of the nominees. There was a little blood, but that is to be expected, I think.

Happily, all seven of the finalists are in my favorite twenty-five. Here they are, for those of you who prefer not to go bouncing around all over the Internet:  Looking at Lincoln; Island: A Story of the Galapagos; Mrs. Harkness and the Panda; Balloons Over Broadway; Eggs 1, 2, 3;  and Dolphin Baby!

I'm also proud that two of my nominees made it to the finalists in their categories: Bink and Gollie: Two for One by Kate DiCamillo in Easy Reader/Short Chapter Books, and Titanic: Voices from the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson in Non-fiction for Tweens & Teens.