Review of Drawing From Memory, by Allen Say

Art, Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Graphic Memoir, Stand-outs, Starred Review, True Stories 1

Drawing From Memory

by Allen Say

Scholastic Press, 2011. 64 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Standout: #4 Children’s Nonfiction

Drawing From Memory is not quite a graphic novel (make that graphic biography). There are some speech bubbles, but the majority of pictures don’t have them. This is a remembrance with lots and lots of pictures. The pictures vary from drawings to photos to comics to realistic paintings.

Allen Say moved into his own apartment (from his grandmother’s house) when he was not-quite thirteen years old. Shortly after moving to the apartment, he read a story about a boy three years older, who was apprenticed to Noro Shinpei, one of the most famous cartoonists in Japan. Allen decided to find him and ask to be an apprentice as well.

The book tells the story of Allen’s years with his Sensei, learning and growing, and eventually getting the chance to go to America. He talks about the process of learning to draw, those who learned with him, and especially the close relationship with his teacher. Best of all is the wide variety of illustrations that accompany the story and make it alive.

This is one of those wonderful books in large format that may get hidden in the Biography section of the library. This isn’t the sort of story you’d want for a report, but it’s very much an inspiring story of someone’s life and about finding and following your calling. This is a delightful book.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/drawing_from_memory.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an Advance Review Copy I got at 2011 ALA Annual Conference.

Review of The Trouble With Kings, by Sherwood Smith

Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 3

The Trouble With Kings

by Sherwood Smith

Samhain Publishing, 2008. 325 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #5 Fantasy Fiction for Teens

Here’s another book that I bought quite some time ago, as soon as I heard about it, and then didn’t get read because it wasn’t a library book with a due date. I recently made myself a rule to read a book I own after I finish any library book. Then I realized I could now read the books I’d been so wanting to read! I knew I would love a Sherwood Smith book, and I was absolutely right.

Okay, I will admit that this particular Sherwood Smith book has not one but two abductions of the heroine! I will also admit that I find her books, including the abductions, wonderfully romantic. I don’t want to think too hard about what that might say about me.

This book opens with Flian waking up from a head injury. A red-haired prince comes to her room. He tells her:

“I am Garian Herlester of Drath. You are Flian Elandersi, my cousin. You were on your way to visit me before your marriage. You rode in an open carriage, and you encouraged your driver to go too fast. The carriage overturned and your driver was killed.”

He continues:

“You have a father and a brother. They know. They wish you to stay here. You have never gotten on well with your father. He is old and autocratic, and favors your brother, who incidentally opposes your marriage because you are betrothed to a king. This will place you in a position of power. So you came here. We have always been friends.”

Garian is eager to help Flian’s marriage happen. She thinks it would be nice if she remembered her betrothed, King Jason Szinzar. But before the ceremony can happen, a dashing prince, Jason’s brother, breaks into the castle and abducts Flian. But then she begins remembering and thinks maybe she should be grateful.

This is a fun and romantic tale with political intrigue and danger and lessons in trust. There’s a touch of magic, as in all of Sherwood Smith’s books. Her books always make me smile. Read this book and enjoy another tale of a perfectly ordinary princess caught up in extraordinary events and trying to figure out what’s right and who she really loves. Definitely fun reading.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/trouble_with_kings.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a book I purchased via Amazon.com.

Review of The Chronicles of Harris Burdick, illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Short Stories, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Suspense 0

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick

14 Amazing Authors Tell the Tales

illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2011. 221 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Standout: Children’s Fiction #5

One of the highlights of my year this year was when, on vacation, I was driving my son a couple hours in the State of Washington to visit a college, and I got him to read aloud to me from The Chronicles of Harris Burdick as I drove. He’s 17, and we both thoroughly enjoyed the stories.

But let me backtrack. Many years ago, when I was first married (so about 25 years ago, in fact), a friend of my husband and me gave us The Mysteries of Harris Burdick for Christmas. (Thanks, Len!) It maybe wasn’t a traditional gift to give a young couple, but we both loved it.

In the introduction to this new book, Lemony Snicket summarizes the premise behind the original book:

“The story of Harris Burdick is a story everybody knows, though there is hardly anything to be known about him. More than twenty-five years ago, a man named Peter Wenders was visited by a stranger who introduced himself as Harris Burdick and who left behind fourteen fascinating drawings with equally if not more fascinating captions, promising to return the next day with more illustrations and the stories to match. Mr. Wenders never saw him again, and for years readers have pored breathlessly over Mr. Burdick’s oeuvre, a phrase that here means ‘looked at the drawings, read the captions, and tried to think what the stories might be like.’ The result has been an enormous collection of stories, produced by readers all over the globe, imagining worlds of which Mr. Burdick gave us only a glimpse.”

The original pictures, especially combined with the captions and titles, all have something eerie or surreal about them. For example, there’s the picture that goes with the story “Under the Rug” that shows a lump under a rug, and a man with a bowtie holding a chair over his head about to swing it at the lump. The caption reads, “Two weeks passed and it happened again.”

I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the picture that goes with “The Seven Chairs.” You see a grand cathedral, and two priests standing and looking at a nun who is sitting calmly on a chair that is floating into the cathedral. The caption reads, “The fifth one ended up in France.”

Chris Van Allsburg implied so much between the pictures, the titles, and the captions.

Back in 1993, Stephen King wrote a story to go with “The House on Maple Street” (the picture with the caption “It was perfect lift-off.”) For this volume, they asked fourteen distinguished authors (including Chris Van Allsburg) to write stories to go with the pictures.

At first, I thought it might be a shame to actually write down a story. But I’ve been thinking about these pictures too long. I don’t feel like these are the only possibilities. In fact, looking at the pictures still gets your mind spinning — but these offerings are still tremendous fun.

Some do a better job than others, and some used approaches I wouldn’t have ever taken, but I can honestly say that I enjoyed all the stories. In fact, this would be a fine collection of stories even if it didn’t have such an intriguing history. In fact, I hope the publishers will consider making this a tradition every decade or so, and get 14 more authors to write the stories!

My personal favorites, in order of appearance, were Jon Scieszka’s “Under the Rug”; Jules Feiffer’s “Uninvited Guests”; Kate DiCamillo’s “The Third-Floor Bedroom”; Chris Van Allsburg’s “Oscar and Alphonse”; Stephen King’s “The House on Maple Street”; and my very favorite, M. T. Anderson’s “Just Desert.”

These stories are eerie enough, they aren’t for the usual picture book crowd. Teens, like my son, will definitely enjoy them, and so will elementary age kids who can handle and enjoy some creepiness.

Like the years when we’d read our new Harry Potter book in England or Bavaria or wherever we were traveling on vacation, this book, in a smaller way, definitely enhanced my vacation. After all those years of reading to my boys, it’s a treat to find a book that my son is willing to read to me. We only finished half the book on vacation, but when I read M. T. Anderson’s story, I insisted that my son read it as well. I can confidently say this book spans many age ranges.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/chronicles_of_harris_burdick.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an Advance Review Copy I got at ALA Annual Conference.

Review of Traveling With Pomegranates, by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

Musings, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Traveling With Pomegranates

A Mother-Daughter Story

by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

Viking, 2009. 282 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Biography

Sue Monk Kidd does meditative books very well. She catches you up in her musings and helps you reach life-changing insights along with her.

In this book, she pairs up with her daughter and both of them will speak to your soul.

This book covers some journeys the two took together, to Greece and France and home to South Carolina. The travels were momentous for both women. The first journey happened when Sue was turning fifty and Ann was graduating from college and growing up. So Sue was dealing with aging and maturing as a mother. And Ann was dealing with her life direction.

They both write in such a way that I felt I shared in both journeys. And both are dealing with a calling to write. Here’s a passage that Sue wrote:

“Perhaps she fought any urge to be a writer out of a need to separate herself from me and my path, the same way I separated myself from my mother and her path. When Ann went to college, I felt the invisible way she broke from me, in that way mothers feel barely discernible things. Even now, as we weave this new closeness, I do not mistake the separate core in her, her own nascent true self, and I watch how she protects it, even as she struggles to unfold it. Do her intuitions about writing come now because she has finally found enough of her separate self to entertain them?

“In my case, losing the small, true light was more like turning my back on it and finding something manageable. Becoming a nurse seemed more doable and sensible. You graduated and took a board exam. When you said, ‘I’m a nurse,’ you knew what you were talking about. You had proof. Nobody would register me as a writer. Would I be a writer if I never published anything? Would I be one even if I did? And the real question: how likely was it to happen? At eighteen, I couldn’t find the courage. I took all that passion and sublimated it into nursing. Until, at twenty-nine, it simply refused to go there anymore.

“I wonder if that’s the perennial story of writers: you find the true light, you lose the true light, you find it again. And maybe again.”

Later, back home in South Carolina, Ann writes:

“One day I thought: what if I approached learning the craft of writing as if it were an apprenticeship? Just do myself a favor and accept that it’s going to be a process, a slow, laborious process. In the Middle Ages, an apprenticeship lasted seven years. That was believed to be the minimum amount of time it took to learn a craft. I started to think of myself as an apprentice. I would tell myself, Relax, you’ve got seven years.”

That’s just a little taste of the luxurious explorations these women do, bringing the reader along into symbolism, and archetypes, and mother-daughter bonding. I read this book slowly and meditatively, a little at a time, and stretched out the enjoyment all the longer that way. A lovely book. You’ll feel you have two new friends when you finish.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/traveling_with_pomegranates.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a book given to me by the publisher at 2010 ALA Annual Conference and signed by both authors.

Review of Stars, by Mary Lyn Ray and Marla Frazee

Contemporary, Creativity, Picture Book Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 2

Stars

by Mary Lyn Ray
illustrated by Marla Frazee

Beach Lane Books, 2011. 36 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Picture Books

I’m normally not very touched by conceptual picture books trying to give readers a warm feeling. But Stars is something special.

I love Marla Frazee’s illustrations, and the children in this book have all the emotional expression of her pictures of Clementine. The words point out how many different kinds of stars there are, from stars in the sky to stars on plants to fireworks.

The illustration on the cover appears in the book accompanied by these words:

“What if you could have a star? They shine like little silver eggs you could gather in a basket.

“Except you know you can’t. Not really.”

The next page begins a concept that carries on through further pages:

“But you can draw a star on shiny paper and cut around it. Then you can put it in your pocket. Having a star in your pocket is like having your best rock in your pocket, but different.

“Because a star is different from a rock.”

Later, we’re told:

“Some days you feel shiny as a star. If you’ve done something important, people may call you a star.

“But some days you don’t feel shiny.

“Those days, it’s good to reach for the one in your pocket.”

Of course, the perfect marriage of words and illustrations enhance these words, as well as the appropriate vertical format.

I think I may go make a star to put in my pocket.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/stars.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

Adventure, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Name of the Wind

The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One

by Patrick Rothfuss

DAW Books, 2007. 722 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2 Fantasy Fiction

This book wasn’t even on my radar until the second book came out and several of my siblings bragged on Facebook about who got their hands on it first. Then my sister Marcy posted a short quotation from the sequel, and by the language alone, I knew this writer was something special. When I went to the bookstore to purchase it, I picked it up and then wandered into the music and movies section of the store. One of the employees saw me holding The Name of the Wind and talked with me for ten minutes about how it’s her favorite book! So I was already quite sure I’d made a good choice.

Then I started reading, and right away the language pulled me in. The book has the feel of a true epic, of something sweeping and important.

The book begins in an inn with a bunch of locals sitting around and Old Cob telling stories. Looking it over after reading the book, I see lots of clues about what’s to follow. On the second page of Chapter One, you understand the significance of the title in the story that’s told of Taborlin escaping from a tower and the Chandrian.

“‘But Taborlin knew the names of all things, and so all things were his to command. He said to the stone: “Break!” and the stone broke. The wall tore like a piece of paper, and through that hole Taborlin could see the sky and breathe the sweet spring air. He stepped to the edge, looked down, and without a second thought he stepped out into the open air. . . .’

“The boy’s eyes were wide. ‘He didn’t!’

“Cob nodded seriously. ‘So Taborlin fell, but he did not despair. For he knew the name of the wind, and so the wind obeyed him. He spoke to the wind and it cradled and caressed him. It bore him to the ground as gently as a puff of thistledown and set him on his feet softly as a mother’s kiss.”

We also quickly learn that there’s something mysterious about the young, red-haired innkeeper.

“He called himself Kote. He had chosen the name carefully when he came to this place. He had taken a new name for most of the usual reasons, and for a few unusual ones as well, not the least of which was the fact that names were important to him.”

I wondered about the subtitle of the book: Day One of the Kingkiller Chronicles. Was the whole thing supposed to happen in a day? Some sort of demon appears and attacks a man, and Kote deals with it without making it obvious that he knows what he’s doing. Several days pass very quickly.

Then a traveler called the Chronicler comes on the path to the inn. In the night, he encounters Kote, who saves him from an attack of more spider-shaped demons with razor-sharp feet. When Kote takes the Chronicler to his inn, the Chronicler recognizes him as Kvothe. He came there to find him, to hear the real story behind all the tales.

Kote takes some convincing. Finally, he tells the Chronicler that the only way he will tell his story is if he has three days. Three days to prepare and tell it properly. So the first book is what he tells the Chronicler on the first day, the start of his story.

Kvothe begins his tale:

“‘In some ways, it began when I heard her singing. Her voice twinning, mixing with my own. Her voice was like a portrait of her soul: wild as fire, sharp as shattered glass, sweet and clean as clover.’

“Kvothe shook his head. ‘No. It began at the University. I went to learn magic of the sort they talk about in stories. Magic like Taborlin the Great. I wanted to learn the name of the wind. I wanted fire and lightning. I wanted answers to ten thousand questions and access to their archives. But what I found at the University was much different than a story, and I was much dismayed.

“‘But I expect the true beginning lies in what led me to the University. Unexpected fires at twilight. A man with eyes like ice at the bottom of a well. The smell of blood and burning hair. The Chandrian.’ He nodded to himself. ‘Yes, I suppose that is where it all begins. This is, in many ways, a story of the Chandrian.'”

His introduction is masterful:

“My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as ‘Quothe.’ Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. I’ve had more names than anyone has a right to.

“The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it’s spoken, can mean ‘The Flame,’ ‘The Thunder,’ or ‘The Broken Tree.’

“‘The Flame’ is obvious if you’ve ever seen me. I have red hair, bright. If I had been born a couple hundred years ago I would probably have been burned as a demon. I keep it short but it’s unruly. When left to its own devices, it sticks up and makes me look as if I have been set afire.

“‘The Thunder’ I attribute to a strong baritone and a great deal of stage training at an early age.

“I’ve never thought of ‘The Broken Tree’ as very significant. Although in retrospect I suppose it could be considered at least partially prophetic.

“My first mentor called me E’lir because I was clever and I knew it. My first real lover called me Dulator because she liked the sound of it. I have been called Shadicar, Lightfinger, and Six-String. I have been called Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, and Kvothe Kingkiller. I have earned those names. Bought and paid for them.

“But I was brought up as Kvothe. My father once told me it meant ‘to know.’

“I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned.

“I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I have burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during the day. I have talked to gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

“You may have heard of me.”

This is what you’re getting in this book. It’s only the start of an epic tale, basically the story of Kvothe’s childhood. We learn how he was brought up in a band of traveling players, incredibly quick to learn. We hear how his parents were killed and he spent years on the streets of a city, but then made it to the University. Along the way, a few of the things he mentioned above happen.

And in the frame, in the present time, grave things are afoot. There’s no telling how that will play out.

The worst thing about this series: It is not complete. Of course, I will have the joy of rereading the first two books when the third comes out. Patrick Rothfuss has a lot of loose ends to tie up, but I have no doubts that he will be able to pull it off.

This was the sort of book that I told everybody about while I was reading it. Now I’ll urge my website readers. This book is unforgettable. Read it!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/name_of_the_wind.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own book, purchased in a Barnes & Noble bookstore.

Official Stand-outs Pages

General 0

Okay, tonight I’m hoping to get an official page posted of 2011 Sonderbooks Stand-outs on Sonderbooks.com.

I want to give the review page for each Stand-out the new heading, with the Sonderbooks Stand-out Seal (say that three times fast). Then also update the links on the other pages to the most recent year’s page, and post the reviews of books that hadn’t posted yet.

So what will follow this post will be reviews of Stand-outs. Tonight, I hope to finish posting the Fiction books and reviews. I would love it if any of the books I name wanted to snag a copy of the Sonderbooks Stand-out Seal to put on their webpage. I’ll probably continue with one type of book at a time, as I did when announcing the Stand-outs.

Happy Reading!

So Behind

Events, General 2

As you can tell, it’s been a couple weeks since I posted. What have I been doing? Well, I’ve got several stacks of books I’m meaning to review. While I was silent, I was writing reviews of the Sonderbooks Stand-outs that I hadn’t reviewed yet. I plan to post those reviews when I have a new webpage made for the 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. Then I can post the reviews and add them to the appropriate page.

I know, I know, I should probably just switch to a blog only format — that would take much less time. But I really like my website, with all my reviews available, and organized by the type of book.

I very much want to blog about every event I attended at ALA Midwinter Meeting, particularly the Morris Seminar. So I hope that will be forthcoming soon. I’m even skipping working on my own books for awhile to try to catch up on reviews.

So we’ll see. The crucial thing is I have to realize that, since my stroke 6 months ago, I don’t have as much energy to spare. I was healing, but had some kind of setback that’s causing double vision now (only if I look in certain directions), and I get tired easily again. What it boils down to is that I need more sleep — so I’m not getting as much blogging done. I’m trying to use my energy to make it to work, and there’s not always much left when I get home. Mind you, I had a fabulous time in Dallas and felt great — but I noticed on my first weekend off after that trip that I did leave myself with an energy deficit.

All that is to say, don’t give up on me! Soon (maybe even tonight? tomorrow? this week?) I hope to post my webpage of Sonderbooks Stand-outs, and then the reviews of the books left. Then I have lots more reviews queued up to post, and I also do plan to post about ALA. And I definitely want to start reading and posting about Der Orden der Seltsamer Sonderlinge, so there are many good things to come!

Okay, so enough explaining! I’m going to work on that page!

Gearing Up for the Morris Seminar and ALA Midwinter Meeting

Conference Corner, Events, General 0

I’m so excited! Four years ago, the Association for Library Service to Children announced it would be starting the William Morris Seminar: A biennial invitational training in book evaluation skills, run by people who have selected past Newbery, Caldecott, Odyssey, Geisel, and other award winners.

I applied that time, but didn’t get accepted. I applied two years ago, but didn’t get accepted. I applied this time and did! So will I let a little thing like iffy health after a stroke stop me from attending? No, I will not!

But now it’s getting down to the wire. The seminar is this coming Friday, in Dallas, and as soon as it is over, ALA Midwinter Meeting begins. I have today off, but I will be working tomorrow and Wednesday. Wednesday night, I have to go to a “Senior Night” for parents at my son’s school. I believe they are mainly collecting money! But also some information will be given out, and I need to fill out some forms and drop off a toddler picture of my son. Then I leave on Thursday.

In the meantime, I also really need to get the FAFSA and CSS Profile paperwork done for my son’s financial aid applications. Because if I wait until after the seminar, the time will be too short. Better do it today, but I do find myself definitely procrastinating.

On a more fun note, I should go over again the books on our discussion list. I’ve read them all, but I should look at them afresh in terms of discussing their distinguished qualities. I think I will interrupt my reading plans to reread Okay for Now after I finish Death Comes to Pemberley and take notes for discussion.

Then there’s the matter of packing. I am sure I will have plenty of chances to pick up books to read once the conference starts on Friday. But what to read on the plane? What to read Thursday night? I may well have finished rereading Okay for Now by then. The next item on my 2012 Reading Plan is an Award Winner. I was going to read Please Ignore Vera Dietz, but I don’t like to bring hardcover library books on trips. So instead, I think I’ll go further down the list and read Everybody Sees the Ants, also by A. S. King, which is a 2011 Cybils Finalist, and which I have as a paperback ARC. After that, my plan says I read a prepublication ARC, so I think I will tuck in Drowned Cities, by Paolo Bacigalupi. Since I’m also bringing Okay for Now for the Morris Seminar, and since I will have plenty of opportunities to pick up new books, that will surely be plenty to bring. The big question is, can I really stop with those three? We shall see….

Of course another huge highlight of ALA Midwinter is the Youth Media Awards announcements on Monday morning. In the past, I’ve followed those on the internet, so it will be a thrill to be there in person, especially having discussed possibilities in detail at the Morris Seminar.

Another thing that makes me happy about ALA Midwinter is that I’ve already connected with some friends who will be there. I’ve only officially been a Librarian for four years, so I am very happy to already have some good friends in the library world. I’ve made them via Twitter, blogs, KidLitCon, our local DC KidLit book club, and other ALA events, and these are people who are also interested in great books for children. It feels very good to feel part of this world and have actual friends I’m excited to see and some to meet in person for the first time. Oh, and on top of that, my writing buddy is going to come for the weekend and share my hotel room. We met in Paris and she is a wonderful vivacious and encouraging person, and I’m so excited to get some time with her.

Of course, on top of all that, I’d really like to get my 2011 Stand-outs page posted! And all the reviews written for the books I chose. We shall see. This day off is already getting out of hand. And did I mention that on top of all of it, I’ve caught a cold? Oh, and I finally have an appointment with my neurologist — the day after I come back — to find out if I had another stroke some time in December. At least that way he won’t have the chance to tell me not to go!

Speaking of my neurologist, I was proactive and got a note from him to allow me to bring a rolling cart onto the exhibit floor. Since every single e-mail about the conference ends with the admonition: “No rolling carts are permitted on the exhibit floor!” I hope that this note will give me an exception. At ALA last summer, I knew my shoulder and neck seemed to be hurting extra from carrying a heavy bag of books, but I didn’t realize I’d had a vertebral artery dissection and was probably making it worse. Now I’m going to stick to my guns and insist on that cart.

I’ve already had two different dreams about ALA Midwinter! In one, I met Brian Selznick and was discussing why I think his book is fabulous as a whole, but I don’t think the text or illustrations on their own are distinguished enough to win (though I would be happy enough if I’m wrong). In the next, I was at an SCBWI Conference, happily picking up free books. I must be excited!

2011 Cybils Finalists

Award Winners, General 0

Now that I’ve posted my own favorites read in 2011, I can stand to read the lists of Cybils Finalists! I’m very proud to be a book blogger, part of the Kidlitosphere, the people who do the Cybils Awards. With the Cybils Awards, the judges (book bloggers) try to balance literary quality with Kid Appeal. They want these to be award winners that kids and teens will actually want to read. I think they achieve this goal.

Another cool thing about the Cybils is the philosophy behind the Finalists. There are two rounds of judging, Finalists, and then one winner in each category. I’ve talked with some Cybils panelists, and they try to come up with a representative group of books for that category. You won’t find all historical fiction with girl protagonists, as sometimes happens with the Newbery. They are looking for a well-rounded list of the top books, and I think they also achieve this goal.

This year, I tried to nominate early, because last year all my favorite books had already been nominated. To my delight, three of my nominees are Finalists!

Those are:
Tuesdays at the Castle, by Jessica Day George, in the category of Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction;

The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, by Wendy Wan-Long Shang, in the category of Middle Grade Fiction;

Dodsworth in Rome, by Tim Egan, in the category of Easy Readers.

These are all great books, and I honestly hope each one wins, though at this point, I’m simply excited that they are Finalists!