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Hi All
While looking at my publisher’s website, I was surprised to see that my app for the iPad, The Sister Exchange, was nominated for the 2012 Cybil Awards. For the uninitiated, the Cybil Awards are literary awards put out by Children and Young Adult Book Bloggers. You can find out more about the award and the finalists at http://www.cybils.com/2013/01/the-2012-cybils-finalists.html#more While I didn’t win any awards, it was nice just to be in the game. I was happy to see my app next to so many other talented authors, illustrators, developers and publishers who had the vision and drive to take an enjoyable story for children and take it to the next level.
To see The Sister Exchange for the iPad, (an enjoyable little app if I do say so myself) please check out the link below.
I tried, I tried, but
I just couldn't figure out
what was going on.
Hilda and the Midnight Giant by Luke Pearson. Nobrow, 2012, 40 pages.
Impressive use of
kid-relevant details, but
then it just . . . stops. Huh?
Little White Duck: A Childhood in China by Na Liu. Graphic Universe, 2012, 96 pages.
RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN
BATTLE SWORDS GREEKS BLOOD WHAT THE
HELL IS GOING ON.
Marathon by Boaz Yakin. First Second, 2012, 192 pages.
Lots of action, lots
of characters to keep straight,
lots of fun to boot.
Big Bad Ironclad: A Civil War Steamship Showdown by Nathan Hale. Amulet, 2012, 128 pages.
Coming of age in
Japan and America --
plus shapeshifting gods.
Ichiro by Ryan Inzana. HMH, 2012, 288 pages.
The story you know,
plus parts of it you've never heard.
Sympathetic.
Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller by Joseph Lambert. Hyperion/Center for Cartoon Studies, 2012, 96 pages.
Book: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Author: Jesse Andrews
Published: 2012
Source: Review copy from publisher specifically for the Cybils
Chubby, pasty, and socially awkward, Greg Gaines has spent most of his high school career trying not to make waves, and finding a fair amount of success. He prides himself on being accepted by every group without ever really being part of one. He stays off the radar and out of firing range in the war that is high school. Nobody knows about his secret hobby of filmmaking except for his (for lack of a better word) best friend and co-director, the undersized and perpetually furious Earl.
Then Greg's mother tells him that Rachel Kushner has leukemia, and she wants him to spend some time with her.
Who is Rachel Kushner? Nobody, really. A girl he once sort-of-maybe-but-not-really had a thing with, in eighth grade. Their parting was drawn out, awkward, and gratefully forgotten until now. Greg bows to the unstoppable force that is his mom's nagging and revives their friendship. He's just trying to make her laugh, but he finds himself opening up to her. And whether he likes it or not, Greg Gaines is about to make tsunami-size waves.
The book really isn't about Rachel, in spite of her presence in the title. As a character, she's actually rather thin (delete tasteless Greg-style joke about thinness and chemo patients). She doesn't do much. There's not even any hint of romance. But her illness forces Greg to be a friend for the first time in his life. He has to do things that are uncomfortable to him. He has to expose his own flaws, not only to her but to others. Near the end of the book, he gets suckered into making a film about Rachel. In the past, he and Earl have made one attempt at each film and went on to the next one. They were stupid, derivative, tasteless, and pretty much senseless. This time he makes . . .
A stupid, derivative, tasteless, and pretty much senseless film. Or rather, five of them. He keeps going. He keeps trying. And while the result is astonishingly bad (I cringed just reading the bits that we get), he still worked at it, for perhaps the first time in his life.
Like most guys, Earl and Greg show their feelings by talking around them, joking about them, and downright pretending they don't exist. You have to watch carefully to see the change in Greg from someone trying to stay invisible and unhurt to someone who is reluctantly, tremulously, openly vulnerable.
I feel like this book got overlooked a lot because of its overt similarity to the much more high-profile The Fault in Our Stars. (And trust me, there will be a review of that coming. Sometime. Soon. Ish.) But they're really not the same at all. Sure, they both talk about death in teens, and how it affects other teens, but in tone and approach they couldn't be more different. This is the death/cancer book for kids who will moan and roll their eyes all the way through The Fault in Our Stars. Myself, I loved them both.
Just your everyday,
gender-nonspecific, bad-ass
giant fighter.
Giants Beware by Jorge Aguirre. First Second, 2012, 208 pages.
Hop on over to the Cybils blog to discover the winners for this year. Congratulations to all the authors and illustrators, and many, many thanks to all the judges and organizers. This is a big job and it's all volunteer-driven.
I had a great time with my fellow judges for the YA fiction panel, and I feel awfully proud of our choice. Hope you like it as much as we did.
Also, there's some holiday about love or something. Yeah. I don't see it catching on.
February 14th is the annual announcement day for Cybil Award winners. Check out my response to Friends With Boys by Faith Erin Hicks, one of the graphic novel winners.
I'm thrilled that
BookSpeak!: Poems About Books is this year's Cybils winner in the poetry category. Go
Laura!
There are many other very deserving winners. Check them out at
The 2012 Cybils Awards.
To see the shortlists from which the winners were selected, check out
Cybils Finalists Flyer.
Congratulations to all the finalists and winners, and thanks to all the hardworking Cybils folks for making it happen.
The 2012 Cybils Awards are announced today and I'll happily share the winner from my category of picture books right here, right now. Head to the Cybils page for the rest of the worthy winners!
A Home for Bird
By Philip C. Stead
Roaring Brook Press
A Home for Bird is a character-driven story about a frog named Vernon who sets off on a perilous journey to help his silent friend find home and happiness. Vernon is a loyal protagonist with whom preschoolers will easily relate. The book offers an engaging read-aloud experience, with ample opportunity for audience participation, and a narrative with both subtle humor and charm. Stead's vibrant and fluid illustrations are a perfect match to the story, and will have young listeners clamoring for parents, teachers, and/or librarians to "read it again!"
Links to material on Amazon.com contained within this post may be affiliate links for the Amazon Associates program, for which this site may receive a referral fee.
Thanks to all who nominated, and to my fellow judges for graphic novels -- what a great crop of books this year! Our winners are GIANTS BEWARE in the middle-grade graphic novel category, and FRIENDS WITH BOYS in the YA graphic novel category.
Check here for all the winners.
Tomorrow (Feb. 14), the winners of this year’s CYBIL Awards will be announced. I had a wonderful time serving on the Book Apps round 2 panel and am honored to have been a part of the selection process once again. If you haven’t checked out the Cybils shortlists from this year and years past, you’re missing out on some truly excellent booklists.
***
This afternoon, Huck and I were playing an alphabet game. What starts with P, what starts with F, etc.
Me; What starts with D?
Huck: W!
***
I am also informed that he would like a puppy named Jellycar Jellycar Three.
By:
Sheila Ruth,
on 1/31/2013
Blog:
Wands and Worlds
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Planesrunner
Everness, Book One
by Ian McDonald
I decided to try a new format for my reviews. I hope this is a useful format.
Plot: Everett Singh's dad, a quantum physicist, is kidnapped off the street in view of Everett by three men in a black car. Later that night, Everett gets a message from his father containing a mysterious app, with only the note "For you only, Everett." Turns out that his dad has been working on a scientific project seeking physical proof of parallel universes, and the app is a map of all the known universes, the only one of its kind in existence. Now Everett is on the run from agents of the Plenitude, an alliance of the known universes. They want the map, called the Infundibulum, and will stop at nothing to get it. But Everett has other plans, and he uses the Infundibulum to travel to an alternate London in a daring attempt to rescue his dad.
Notable Characters:
- Everett Singh. Teen boy who is as good at cooking as he is at math, and not afraid to use either in pursuit of his goal. Punjabi, or at least half Punjabi (his dad is Punjabi, but I never figured out if his mom is). Authentic teen male voice.
- Sen Sixsmyth. Fearless teen girl with an attitude and a love for "bona" tech. Airship pilot in an alternate London.
- Captain Anastasia Sixsmyth. Sen's adoptive mother. No-nonsense airship captain. Strict but compassionate, not afraid of a fight.
Worldbuilding: Excellent! The second half of the book takes place in E3, an alternate universe in which oil-based technology was never developed and modern technology comes out of a coal-based heritage. More advanced than our universe in some ways - carbon nanotubes are used everwhere - but less advanced in some areas, like computing. Very steampunkish feel.
Things I liked:
- The worldbuilding and the steampunkish feel to E3, as noted above.
- Airships!
- Hard science fiction that doesn't shy away from science and math.
- Authentic teen boy voice. A boy who's good at math and soccer and cooking, and isn't afraid to use his culinary skills.
- Sen Sixsmyth is just about the best thing about this book. She's a fantastic character. Her adoptive mother Captain Anastasia is pretty awesome, too.
- The bond between Everett and his dad. Everett is a typical teen boy, and mentally rolls his eyes at some of the things his dad does, but it's clear that they are close, and Everett literally travels to another universe to rescue his dad.
Issues:
- There's too much detail in the descriptions, and it bogs down the story in some places. In some ways the detail is good, as it contributes to the worldbuilding. It's also authentic to the protagonist, as we learn early on that he notices details and connections. However, in places there's so much detail that it almost seems to be stream of consciousness and it's hard to follow.
- I think the cover really does the book a disservice, and probably deters a lot of teens from picking it up. The biggest problem with it is it's too busy. I think the picture of Everett coming through the gate would have made a better cover. Although I have a problem with that image as well, as he looks more like a caucasian with a tan than someone of Indian ancestry.
Who would like this book:
- Math and science geeks
- Steampunk fans
- Boys and girls
- Hard science fiction fans
Get it from:
by Louise Erdrich. Harper, 2012. (review copy for the Cybils Middle Grade Fiction list). This is the fourth book in Erdrich's Birchbark House series. I have enjoyed the entire series, including Birchbark House, The Game of Silence, and The Porcupine Year. The stories cover 100 years in the life of an Ojibwe family living in Minnesota in the 19th century. In Chickadee we meet twin boys who are
Thank God, 2012 is over. I don't know about you, but it was not one of my better trips around the sun.
So I am looking forward with cautious optimism to 2013. Surely two crappy years in a row must portend better things for this nominally unlucky year. I am not really a resolution person, but I am setting my mind on four goals:
1. Make a positive impact on the universe. I don't mean I need to cure cancer or solve global poverty, but I need to find ways to make my day-to-day activities purposeful -- to believe that what I'm doing is helpful to someone, somehow.
2. Get back on Twitter in a meaningful way. When I left publishing I dropped off the Twitter radar, because I didn't really have anything to say to my book-people followers anymore. Well, that's crap. I should participate again.
3. Reread Shakespeare. I used to be a HUGE Shakespeare person -- wrote my thesis on secondary women's roles in the comedies, in fact -- but I've fallen out of the habit, now that I'm out of the literary world and haven't been in a play in years. I am contemplating a yearlong rereading project, if I can figure out a way to do it without going crazy. Details to come, possibly.
4. Enjoy the heck out of my Cybils judging experience once more. I believe that the finalists have been posted here, so it's off to ILL Land for me.
Happy New Year, friends.
As I was trying to think what this book reminded me of, I realized it nothing less than a medieval mystery. The detail of the plot and the elegance of the writing made this a take-it-in-one-sitting book for me. I had a library copy, but I may need... Read the rest of this post
One of the rare straight SF novels of the Cybils season (not that rare overall, but this year has some better science than last, I think) this book was meant to be a quick sip whilst doing something else, and I ended up putting off whatever else it... Read the rest of this post
I judge.I should be ashamed to say it, but I'm not. We all do it. We judge books by their covers, even though there's a clear "don't" in that saying. And, okay - there's a reason, in this case. I'm not a very girly girl, try as I might. If I see The... Read the rest of this post
I've got school story-itis. I LOVE and adore school stories. Boarding school stories are EVEN BETTER. I don't know why - I went to boarding school and know it to be a peculiar sort of hell, but somewhere in my head I'm still expecting to find... Read the rest of this post
I'd mentioned already being leery of Book Reboots, and how I wasn't sure if I could read another version of Jane Eyre. Well, never fear, it's time now for another Austen reboot! Wait, wait - don't go. There are no zombies. NONE! Instead, this novel... Read the rest of this post
By: GreenBeanTeenQueen,
on 1/1/2013
Blog:
GreenBeanTeenQueen
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Happy New Year! In the blogging world, January 1st also means the day the finalists are posted for the Cybils Awards. So head on over to the
Cybils site and check out the lists as they are posted today. I can't wait to see what makes the shortlists in each category!! And congrats to all the bloggers who served as judges this year on all your hard work!
It's Cybils Finalist Day! The Cybils shortlists have been announced, and what a fabulous group of books!
Go check them out!
Here's a list of the Fantasy/Science Fiction finalists:
Fantasy & Science Fiction (Young Adult)
And All the Stars
by Andrea K Höst
Every Day
by David Levithan
Planesrunner (Everness, Book One)
by Ian McDonald
Seraphina
by Rachel Hartman
The Curiosities: A Collection of Stories
by Brenna Yovanoff, Tessa Gratton, and Maggie Stiefvater
The Drowned Cities
by Paolo Bacigalupi
Vessel
by Sarah Beth Durst
Click here for Fantasy & Science Fiction (Young Adult) shortlist with blurbs and links
Fantasy & Science Fiction (Middle Grade)
Beswitched
by Kate Saunders
Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities
by Mike Jung
The Cabinet of Earths
by Anne Nesbet
The False Prince: Book 1 of the Ascendance Trilogy
by Jennifer A. Nielsen
The Last Dragonslayer (The Chronicles of Kazam)
by Jasper Fforde
The One and Only Ivan
by Katherine Applegate
The Peculiar
by Stefan Bachmann
I was honored to serve again on the Fantasy/Science Fiction (Young Adult) panel. There were so many good books that choosing only seven finalists was HARD! A big shoutout to my fellow panelists. They're all smart, interesting folks who know their SFF! I loved working with them and will miss our discussions. Go follow their blogs:
A big shoutout also to the terrific Fantasy & Science Fiction (Middle Grade) panelists! This was one of the most active and dedicated panels I've ever worked with. They generated hundreds and hundreds of messages discussing the books over the course of the three months, and had two separate chat sessions during the holidays, lasting several hours each. Their discussions ranged far and wide, and covered everything from middle-grade appeal to internal consistency. If you want to know more about middle-grade fantasy & science fiction, you couldn't do better than to follow these folks:
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chinese childhood / there one day and gone the next / the duck flies away
so true, it's only when it doesn't quite end that i realized it never really went anywhere to begin with.