Cybils Nominations Open October 1st: How Can You Participate?
Nominations for the third annual Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’
Literary Awards (the Cybils) will be open Wednesday, October 1st through
Wednesday, October 15th. The goal of the Cybils team (some 100 bloggers) is
to highlight books that are high in both literary quality and kid appeal.
The Cybils were founded by Anne Boles Levy
(http://dadtalk.typepad.com/book_buds_kidlit_reviews/) and Kelly Herold
(http://kidslitinformation.blogspot.com/).
This year, awards will be given in nine categories (Easy Readers, Fantasy &
Science Fiction, Fiction Picture Books, Graphic Novels, Middle Grade Novels,
Non-Fiction Middle Grade/Young Adult Books, Non-Fiction Picture Books,
Poetry, Young Adult Novels). Anyone can nominate books in these categories
(one nomination per person per category). Nominated titles must be published
between January 1st and October 15th of this year, and the books must be in
English (or bilingual, where one of the languages is English). To nominate
titles, visit the Cybils blog (http://www.cybils.com/) between October 1st
and 15th. A separate post will be available for each category – simply
nominate by commenting on those individual posts. If you are not sure which
category to choose for a particular book, a questions thread will also be
available.
Between October 16th and January 1st, Cybils panelists (children’s and young
adult bloggers) will winnow the nominations down to a 5-7 book short list
for each category. A second set of panelists will then select the winning
titles for the different categories. The winners will be announced on
February 14th, 2009.
The Cybils lists, from long lists to short lists
(http://dadtalk.typepad.com/cybils/finalists/index.html) to the lists of
winners (http://dadtalk.typepad.com/cybils/2007/02/the_2006_cybils.html),
offer a wonderful resource to anyone looking for high-quality, kid-friendly
books. The Cybils team has worked hard to balance democracy (anyone can
nominate titles) with quality control (two rounds of panel judging by people
who focus on children’s books every day). We do this work because we
consider it vital to get great books into the hands of children and young
adults.
How Can You Participate?
We think that the Cybils nominations will be of interest to parents,
teachers, librarians, writers, and teens. If you have a blog or an email
list or belong to a newsgroup that serves one of these populations, and you
feel that your readers would be interested, please consider distributing
this announcement (you are welcome to copy it). The Cybils team would very
much appreciate your help in spreading the word. And if you, or the children
that you know, have any titles to suggest, we would love to see your
nominations at the Cybils blog (http://www.cybils.com/), starting on
Wednesday. Thanks for your help, and stay tuned for further news!
Jen Robinson (http://jkrbooks.typepad.com)
Literacy Evangelist for the 2008 Cybils
