Nolan's ‘Bad to the Bone' Nabs Cybils' Best Early Chapter Book
RSSBy Rocco Staino -- School Library Journal, 02/17/2010
Lucy Nolan’s Down Girl and Sit: Bad to the Bone (Marshall Cavendish, 2008), a hilarious dog’s eye view of the world, is winner of this year’s Children's and YA Bloggers' Literary award (Cybils) for best early chapter book, a category that was added this year.
Now in its fourth year, the awards were started by two kid lit bloggers, Anne Levy and Kelly Herold, and now involve close to 100 other bloggers who judge more than 900 nominations. The Cybils recognizes the authors and illustrators of books with literary merit that appeal to kids, and books must be published between October 16, 2008 and October 15, 20009.
The winning titles receive the right to add Cybil award sticker to their covers, and winner receive a gold nib fountain pen.
Here is a list of this year’s winners:
Cybils Award for Children's & Middle Grade Books
Picture Book (Fiction)
All The World (Beach Lane Bks., 2009) by Liz Garton Scanlon; illustrated by Marla Frazee
Musical text and breathtaking illustrations capture a day in the life of children "from morning sun becomes noon blue" to "crickets, curtains, day is done."
Picture Book (Non-Fiction)
The Day-Glo Brothers (Charlesbridge, 2009) by Chris Barton; illustrated by Tony Persiani
Day-glo colors didn’t exist before World War II. After an accident in a ketchup factory derailed Bob Switzer’s hope to be a doctor, he and his brother Joe, who was interested in magic, set out to find a paint that glowed. Eventually, the Switzers did what nobody else had—they invented new colors.
Easy Reader
Watch Me Throw a Ball (Hyperion, 2009) by Mo Willems
The Elephant & Piggie series continues with another perfectly pitched early reader. The book is a conversation between two friends who speak in simple repetitive phrases about their ball-throwing prowess.
Early Chapter Book
Down Girl and Sit: Bad to the Bone (Marshall Cavendish, 2008) by Lucy Nolan; illustrated by Mike Reed
This dog’s eye view of the world is laugh-out-loud funny. Down Girl, who has learned her name from how she is most often referred to by her master, narrates the book.
Poetry
Red Sings from the Treetops: A Year in Colors (Houghton, 2009) by Joyce Sidman; illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski
The vivid words of poet Joyce Sidman are fresh even when writing about the oldest of concepts, color. The gloriously hue-soaked pictures of illustrator Pamela Zagarenski combine to create a poetry book that is both thoughtful and exuberant.
Graphic Novel
The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook (Bloomsbury, 2009) by Eleanor Davis
This story could not be told in any other form but comics. Charts, diagrams, maps and lists all pour forth, creating a wealth of material for the reader to lose themselves.
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Dreamdark: Silksinger (Putnam, 2009) by Laini Taylor
This next book in the Faeries of Dreamdark is a complex fantasy composed of the three-dimensional world-building, believable characterization, lyrical writing and non-stop adventure. Silksinger picks up where Blackbringer left off, as fairy champion Magpie fights to find the sleeping Djinn and restore them to their rightful places of power.
Middle Grade Fiction
Chains (S & S, 2008) by Laurie Halse Anderson
A story of two slave girls, Isabel and her sister Ruth, who are sold in the 1770s to a wealthy Loyalist family, are taken to New York where Isabel gets swept into the intrigue of the Revolutionary War, becoming a spy for the rebels.
Cybils Awards For Young Adult Books
Non-Fiction
The Frog Scientist (Houghton, 2009) by Pamela S. Turner; illustrated by Andy Comins
The book covers the ongoing research of biologist Tyrone Hayes into the effects of the most commonly used pesticide in the U.S., atrazine, on frogs. Hayes has discovered that exposure to atrazine causes "some of the male frogs to develop into bizarre half-male, half-female frogs."
Graphic Novel
Gunnerkrigg Court: Orientation (Archaia, 2008) by Tom Siddell
In a mysterious British boarding school, a talented student seems to have unique and special abilities.
Fantasy & Science Fiction
Fire (Dial, 2009) by Kristin Cashore
Fire struggles with changing relationships and her own dangerous powers as her homeland of the Dells descends into civil war. Throughout the book, she learns to see the people she loves in shades of grey, and in the process learns to accept her own virtues and flaws.
Young Adult Fiction
Cracked Up To Be (Macmillan, 2008) by Courtney Summers
The debut novel about Parker Fadley, a model student and cheerleader, who gives up that life and turns instead to drinking and failing classes. What could have caused this sudden change?
