New awards to vote for!

A group of kidlit bloggers (superhero bloggers by night, cleverly disguised librarians and teachers and writers by day) have started a new award – The Cybils.

They explain it best: “Welcome to the 2006 Cybils, the first award of its kind from kidlit bloggers. We’re basically going to let you, the blog-reading public, nominate your favorite books and then we’ll have the happy task of winnowing it down to our favorites.”

You can nominate one book per category – books must have been published in 2006. (This means none of my books qualify.) All the details are on the site. Go there and have fun.

::coughcough:: Seems to me this might be a good thing for English teachers to have their students do ::coughhintcough::

Last night, we hung out with my nephew who is home on leave from the Army; shot pool and laughed a lot. He is home from a long tour in South Korea, and heads to Georgia soon for a few months before heading out to Iraq. It was great to see him again, but it made me wish that Election Day was tomorrow so I could vote and do something useful with the all-consuming rage I have about the current state of American politics.

Today is a “getting ready for tomorrow” day because tomorrow is a “drive to the conference in New Jersey” day in anticipation of Saturday, which is the Rutgers University Council on Children’s Literature One-on-OnePlus Conference. Am stoked about this one. Must finish my speech, though.

Before I go, let me point you to The Ophelia Project, which a teacher at PCTELA told me about. Does anyone out there have experience with their programs?

22 Replies to “New awards to vote for!”

  1. Thanks for promoting the Cybils! The ladies who created it are fantastic. I’m going to help out in the YA category. BTW, Chris Golden says I’m Supergirl.

  2. I wish your nephew well—

    But man oh man, from South Korea to Iraq–
    For some reason when I read that it reminded me of the Jurassic Park I scene where Dr Grant got Timmy out of car and they climbed down the tree- and the dialogue is soemthing like…
    “WEll, at least we’re out of the tree(South Korea).
    Yeah, but we’re back in the car.(Iraq).”

  3. Analogy aside—my hat is off to your nephew-and all of them out there the world over doing what they do. I was in the Army in ’75-’78 but never left the states. May they all be safe and home soon.

  4. Ironically, I just read Reviving Ophelia yesterday. It’s a fantastic book and one anyone who works with or for teens should read. It was strange to read at 22, though…I’ve already lost touch with who I was in my adolescent years, so I was wondering the whole time if I had the problems a lot of those girls had.

    Tell you nephew thanks for me. The Army frustrates me sooo much, deploying soldiers for a year and then sending them straight from one into another. I’m so nervous about my fiance finishing ROTC and commissioning…I support him, obviously, but I’m definitely not excited about it.

  5. I read Reviving Ophelia just as my oldest was entering middle school. I really helped me as a mom, and wound up having a big influence on Speak.

  6. I love that you just said “stoked.”

    Election Day is soon. I just wish it was a presidential year.

    While I think book-banning is total bollocks, I still think that 4th graders probably shouldn’t read My Brother Sam is Dead (thank you Mr. Forkey). When do you think it’s ok to read Speak? Jr High? Highschool? College?

  7. Wow. I’ll be 21 next week and not only haven’t lost touch with who I was at 16, in fact, I don’t think I’m that different now. I guess that’s both good and bad.

  8. poor buffalo

    I am actually responding to your post of Oct 13th because we just got our power back yesterday! 6 days with no power! This is Leslie the librarian from Park School of Buffalo. Remember us? I wanted to thank you for your sympathies! Our beautiful campus is devasted. The poor trees! The teachers, students and parents have spent the week clearing all the broken branches and there is still much to be done. We all look forward to getting back to school next week (if the power at school is back). I never would have thought I could be tired of “snow days”, especially in October.

  9. Re: poor buffalo

    Hello, Leslie! (of course I remember you guys!!!!) What a mess you must have had! I hope some of the trees were salvagable.

    You guys have already had your winter, as far as I’m concerned.

    Say hi to all from me.

  10. I think SPEAK works with 8th graders (towards the end of the year) and older. But that’s my opinion. Some communities are more comfortable with it in 10th grade, or even 12th.

    Election Day… president…. yeah. I’m thinking I might be very vocal in the election booth: “Take that you son of a gun! Ha! I am firing you!” Etc.

  11. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too, 8th or 9th grade. Someone told me the other day that she thought 8th grade was too young, but over half of all rape victims are under 25. The age group at most risk is 18-21. The runnners up are 15-17 and 12-14. Instead of pretending it doesn’t happen, why don’t we tell them what to do if it does happen? Plus, I think it’s important for guys to understand just how devastating it is.

  12. Happy Early Birthday!

    I see your birthday is tomorrow. I hope it’s a great one!
    My cousins’ daughter is 13 and i just loaned her all your books. She loves them so far.

  13. hi! i hope the conference in NJ went well! i saw on your website last week that you were in harrisburg for a conference. i wanted so much to see you, but then i looked at the page and realized that it was a librarians/teachers conference. no way could i get in there:-(. oh well. maybe we’ll see each other again when we least expect it, like on a random street corner lol. oh by the way i graduate on june 7th and i just thought you might want to know that. miss you and hope to see you sometime this year! =) ♥

  14. p.s. happy early birthday! i hope you have an amazing day! i wish i could be there to celebrate with you, but i’ll be at school. i’ll be thinking about you and i’ll watch Speak and read all your books in your honor lol! and i’ll eat a cupcake or something in your honor too lol! =) ♥

  15. thanks & happy b-day

    Thanks so much for coming to the One on One Plus! I really enjoyed meeting you & your comments in the 5 on 5 were sooo helpful. Your speech was amazing & while I know I have so much work ahead of me, I can’t wait to attack it.

    Hope you have a fantastic birthday & that all your flowers bloom in the coming year.

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  16. I’m not sure if anyone in the college uses it in classes or anything, but the Bodleian Library has a copy of speak, which means that the entirety of Oxford University has access to it.

    And no, I do not have any pictures of the inside to show you when I get home.

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