It was fun being on the Cybils panel again this year–and it was a surprise how many wonderful children’s poetry books I missed reading when they came out. We had little debates over how much to emphasize kid appeal (my vote was A LOT), whether the art should influence your ratings, and what makes a poetry collection award-worthy. There were so many fantastic collections/anthologies–we couldn’t agree on just five, so we narrowed it down to seven finalists in the Poetry category. Thanks, Kelly Fineman, our poetry coordinator, and all the other panelists–I had a great time being part of this.
And when you’re done checking out the Poetry finalists, look over the shortlists for the other categories, too. I need to print out all the finalist lists and get these books on reserve at my library. I feel like I read non-stop, but there were still plenty of books on these lists I’ve never read or even heard of. And that’s the beauty of the Cybils.
Amended: And of course, a huge CONGRATULATIONS to all the Poetry finalists. Thank you for your wonderful books!