Cybils

REVIEW Hatter M. Vol. 2: Mad with Wonder

Kim Baccellia is a familiar face on the Cybils Graphic Novels panel and an avid blogger who posts about graphic novels, YA fiction, and the YA writing life at Si, se puede! Yes we can. She is the author of the YA fantasy Earrings of Ixtumea and the upcoming novel Crossed Out.

Kim also reviews books for Young Adult Books Central, where she took a closer look at Cybils YA Graphic Novels nominee Hatter M, Vol. 2: Mad with Wonder by Frank Beddor, Liz Cavalier, and Sami Makkonen. This is the second installment of the graphic novel adaptation of the Looking Glass Wars series, a dark and fantastical twist on the classic Wonderland tale. As Kim describes it,

Beddor paints a Victorian/Gothic world with this graphic novel adaptation....Dark images evoke the surreal world of Hatter falling into our world and his unending quest to find Wonderland’s surviving princess.

Click here for the full review.

REVIEW Keena Ford and the Second-Grade Mix-Up

Sweet on Books is a virtual book community and "a place to help adults match young readers with books at just the right reading level and interest." The site was founded by two book-loving Melissas, one of whom (Melissa Young) is one of our Round I judges for Easy Readers and Short Chapter Books. She and her co-Melissa blog about books ranging from picture books to chapter books, using their own rating system and reader levels.

In Melissa Y.'s review of Cybils nominee Keena Ford and the Second-Grade Mix-Up--written by yet another Melissa, Melissa Thomson--she gives the bullet-point skinny as well as a detailed summary of what makes the trouble-attracting narrator so appealing to kids. Thomson has created a sympathetic and realistic second-grade character in Keena, says Melissa Y.:

This is the first early chapter book I have read that really reminded me of my own classroom environment when I was teaching. Children will relate and see their own classroom societies in Keena's, and see themselves in Keena or see some of their friends in Keena.

Read the full review here.

REVIEW Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring the Earth to Life

Librarian Debbie Nance--one of our Round I judges for Non-Fiction Picture Books--blogs at readerbuzz, where she frequently writes about not only picture books but YA and adult fiction, graphic novels, and various bookish thoughts. She also keeps lists of useful book blogs and library blogs.

Debbie recently reviewed Cybils NFPB nominee Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring the Earth to Life, by Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm. This vividly-illustrated book talks about photosynthesis, and how the sun's energy is connected to all the plant and animal life on earth. Debbie road-tested the book with a group of children, who almost universally gave it high ratings:

"The children liked the bright pictures and the interactive way the text began."

Click here for the full review.

REVIEW Far From You by Lisa Schroeder

Round I YA judge Tirzah Price is also known by her blog name, The Compulsive Reader. She's a seasoned Cybils veteran who posts literary news, updates, and reviews of YA books of all genres, interspersed with plenty of fun stuff like polls and contests. She is also part of the YA lit group blog Teen Tuesday.

Earlier this year, she reviewed Cybils YA nominee Far From You, a free-verse novel by Lisa Schroeder. The main character, Alice, has lost her mother to cancer and is having trouble moving on, even though her father apparently has. Events--and feelings--come to a head when she's trapped in a snowstorm with her stepmother and newborn sister Ivy. In Tirzah's review, she talks about the pacing of the story:

The plot moves quickly, and the poems are oftentimes quite short, but the beautiful thing about Far From You is that although it is not very long, it is brimming with emotion.

Read the full review here.

REVIEW Dinothesaurus by Douglas Florian

Round I poetry judge Sylvia Vardell is well loved around the kidlitosphere for her blog Poetry for Children, but you might not know that besides an avid fan of children's poetry, she's also a professor and an author! She's written or co-written a number of books about children's poetry for librarians and teachers, and she's the editor of Bookbird, a journal of international children's literature. We're not worthy! We're not worthy!

One of Sylvia's book reviews covered Cybils poetry nominee Dinothesaurus, written and illustrated by Douglas Florian. It's a book of poetry about dinosaur names, which somehow just lend themselves to poems that beg to be read aloud. But, more than simply a book of fun-to-read verses, it's also filled with facts about 18 different dinosaurs and varied, detailed illustrations. According to Sylvia,

Even kids who are not dinosaur fanatics, love the long, crazy, complicated names for dinosaurs. So, we end up with a great book about dinosaurs, as well as a fun book of wordplay poetry.

Click here for the full review.

REVIEW The Brooklyn Nine by Alan Gratz

Sarah Mulhern of The Reading Zone is definitely a Cybils regular. She is a 6th grade language arts teacher who posts consistently thoughtful and varied reviews of the books she places in her classroom library. She also blogs about writing, teaching, and her classroom...and occasionally monarch butterflies.

As a Round I judge for the Middle Grade Fiction category this year, Sarah recently read and reviewed Cybils nominee The Brooklyn Nine by Alan Gratz. Besides its uniqueness as a baseball title that should appeal equally to boys and girls, it also comprises nine stand-alone yet interweaving stories that cover nine generations of a family, all of which share a love of baseball. As Sarah put it in her review,

The stories are a pleasant mix of history and sport, touching on historical moments like the Civil War, the 1920’s mob, the All-American Girls Baseball League, the Cold War, and more. But regardless of the setting, this is a story about baseball and how it connects a family.

Read the full review here.

REVIEW A closer look at Claudette Colvin

By now, most of the hardcore bibliophiles know exactly who won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. I think Alicia at LibrariYAn was first out of the gate with a review after the awards announcement. Phillip Hoose's Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice profiles the teenager who preceded the late, great Rosa Parks in refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. Alicia speaks for a lot of us in writing:

As I read, I found myself alternately amazed by Claudette's story and astonished by my lack of knowledge about her role in ending the segregation of Montgomery's city buses. I kept asking myself "How could I not have known about this?"

Read the rest here.

The New York Times catches up with Claudette Colvin today.

Cybils non-fiction list flexes some muscle

Thanks to Susan for an excellent post on the awesome might of the non-fiction list for tween and teen readers this year.  She lists all her panelists' reviews so far but first points out how the books are already attracting attention:

Two of the five finalists for the National Book Award in Young People's Literature were nonfiction titles: Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice and Charles and Emma. As you've heard, Claudette Colvin won. Those books and other strong candidates are vying for a Cybils award.

And don't forget that Mondays are the designated day for non-fiction lovers at book blogs near you. Today's round-up of posts devoted to this genre is at thebooknosher.

--Anne

REVIEW Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell

We may be well past Halloween, but is there ever a bad time for a good ghost story? Nettle of the cleverly named The Muse, Amused--a Round I panelist for MG/YA Fantasy and Sci-Fi--reviews not only ghost stories but a whole array of YA books at her blog.

The ghost story in question for today, though, is Cybils FSF nominee Shadowed Summer, by Saundra Mitchell. Nettle took a look at this combination supernatural-tale-of-ghostliness and coming-of-age story earlier in the year, and wrote in her review that this novel was much more than it appears to be on the surface:

The plot of this book is a ghost story, but the heart is a moving story about the pangs of growing up and struggling to understand your way from childhood to teenagerhood.

Click here for the full review.

REVIEW The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney

Travis Jonker of the blog 100 Scope Notes is definitely a familiar face around the Cybils, and this year he's a Round I panelist for Fiction Picture Books. His blog covers news and reviews from the world of children's literature, from the perspective of an elementary school librarian. He also reviews for School Library Journal.

There was just no way I could resist posting his review of Cybils nominee The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney. Why? Because it is a Toon Review. I really wish I'd thought of this idea and your blog editor is extremely jealous! Don't miss checking out Travis's review of this entirely wordless retelling of the classic Aesop fable. As Travis's tattoo-coveting toon reviewer put it,

What seals the deal are the illustrations. Gorgeous, expressive watercolors that are absolutely up to the challenge of carrying the plot.

Check out Travis's toon review here.