I can hardly believe it, but the Cybils Awards are ready to kick off again! For those of you who are going “huh?”, that’s the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards, now in their SEVENTH year. The Cybils are a homegrown blogger award that recognizes the best of the best in ten different categories of children’s and YA lit–in particular, they try to honor books that combine literary merit with that elusive spark of kid appeal.
I’m very excited to be back as the Cybils blog editor again this year, putting up announcements and a wide range of book reviews from Cybils volunteer panelists. The blog, and the printable lists of winners and finalists, are both great resources if you’re looking for reading material for the young readers in your life, if you’re a librarian looking for great new books, or if you just need some inspiration regarding what to read. The blog reviews are also a fun way to discover new voices in the Kidlitosphere–three times a week, we try to feature reviews from as wide a range of panelists as possible.
Sounds like fun, right? If you want to get involved, the Cybils are looking for a few good volunteers. And by “a few,” they mean somewhere around 80+. If you blog regularly about children’s and/or young adult books, and would like to help by serving on a first- or second-round panel of judges, you can fill in the application (and find out more about the process) here.