Cybils Awards Announced!

     My heart belongs to Picture Books and what better way to celebrate Valentine's Day than to share the wonderful news that the Cybils Awards for 2011 have just been announced!
     As you may already know, I was lucky and honored to be a Round 1 Panelist Judge for the Fiction Picture Book category this year.  We read over 250 picture books and ended up selecting 5 finalist. From those five (drum roll, please), here is your 2011 Cybils Award Winner:

Me . . . Jane by Patrick McDonnell
Illustrated by Patrick McDonnell
Published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
2011
Caldecott Honor 2012


Click here for my review of Me...Jane

     Please visit Cybils Awards for 2011 to see all the other winners in categories such as: Book App, Nonfiction Picture Book, Early Chapter Books, Easy Readers, Poetry, Graphic Novels, and more!

Cybils Fiction Picture Books Finalists. My journey as a panelist.

   
     This year -I guess is now last year- I had the honor and pleasure of being selected as one of the panelist for the first round of the Cybils Awards, Fiction Picture Books category.  It has been one of the coolest things I've been able to do as a blogger and reader. Thanks the 250+ nominations, I got to read more picture books in a two month span that I ever thought was humanly possible. Some were good, some were, well, painful, and some were just awesome.  I also got to connect with some brilliant teachers, librarians, and bloggers. I kept pinching myself wondering how I had ended up being part of such a brilliant group and at the end, it was a perfect ending to my first year as a blogger.
     Coming up with the seven finalist was very difficult. We spent hours agonizing over what books to include/leave out...and here they are: Fiction Picture Books Finalists.  Check each book out! You won't be disappointed. I promise. By the way, I reviewed all but one of them on this blog, so you might know them already.
     And if you want to see the finalists under all the other Cybils categories, go here: Cybils 2011 Finalists. So there you go.  Now go and make your TBR pile as big as possible!

ps: You get extra #nerdybookclub points for knowing that TBR is To Be Read