Cybils Shortlists Announced

It's January 1, 2011 and that can mean only one thing: the Cybils shortlists have been announced!

In my cursory review of the shortlists I've come across a few books that I've actually read (mostly nonfiction), a couple books we all kinda knew would make the list (Reckless, The Dark Game, Ship Breaker), a slew of books that are on my TBR pile (Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze, Scrawl, Plain Kate, etc.) and then an unendingly long list of books that I either didn't really know about, or knew about, but just hadn't considered (Harmonic Feedback, Belly Up, Ninth Ward).  Guess I've got a lot of reading to do.

I was most surprised about the books that I feel everyone is talking about in the blogosphere, (mostly for Newbery and Printz consideration) but didn't make the list.  To my mind, the Newbery-ish titles would include Rita Williams-Garcia's One Crazy Summer, Deborah Wiles' Countdown, and Katherine Erskine's Mockingbird.  And for Printz-ly titles (which I now feel a bit out of touch with because my work with middle schoolers has redirected my reading priorities) I'd have thought Jennifer Donnelly's Revolution, Melina Marchetta's Finnikin of the Rock, and/or Catherine Fisher's Incarceron would have seen some love.  It seems like the Cybils lists are generally lacking in historical fiction, which isn't a bad thing per se, but perhaps it might indicate that a separate historical fiction category should be added to showcase the genre.  But who am I to advise on such matters?

Alas, Happy New Year!

The LibrariYAn is an Amazon Associate. If you click from links on this blog to Amazon and buy something (anything!), I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.