Next week the winners in each category of this year’s Cybil Awards will be revealed. I am most excited for the category I worked on: Middle Grade Fiction. Myself and four other dedicated judges read each of the titles. We then battled it out in a winner takes all online discussion. I had two favorites on the list and hoped not too much blood, sweat, or tears would be shed to convince the others. Happily we agreed on our top choice. Here again here are the five finalists:
Four female – one male protagonist. The settings: London, San Francisco, Vietnam, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Each day next week I’ll have a review of each title starting with the winner on Monday.
The best news is you can win a giveaway of all five hardback books by making a comment on any or all of those days (up to five entries). I’ll draw the name on Sunday (Feb. 21) at 6 pm EST. Good luck!
12-year-old baseball fanatic and heart transplant survivor. He is funny, perceptive, and sees the world in ways others only understand after he explains. He speaks like an old soul, using the courage from his operation to guide his thoughts. His love of baseball and how it is played leads to many comparisons to everyday life.
Seventh grader Jeremy Miner has a girl problem. Or, more accurately, a girls problem. Four hundred and seventy-five of them. That’s how many girls attend his school, St. Edith’s Academy.
THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF CHARLIE PRICE by Jennifer Maschari (February 23, 2016) Ever since twelve-year-old Charlie Price’s mom died, he feels like his world has been split into two parts. Before included stargazing and Mathletes and Saturday scavenger hunts with his family. After means a dad who’s completely checked out, comically bad dinners, and grief group that’s anything but helpful. It seems like losing Mom meant losing everything else he loved, too.
When eleven-year-old Thyme Owens’ little brother, Val, is accepted into a new cancer drug trial, it’s just the second chance that he needs. But it also means the Owens family has to move to New York, thousands of miles away from Thyme’s best friend and everything she knows and loves. The island of Manhattan doesn’t exactly inspire new beginnings, but Thyme tries to embrace the change for what it is: temporary.
MAYDAY by Karen Harrington (May 24, 2016) Wayne Kovok lives in a world of After. After his uncle in the army was killed overseas. After Wayne and his mother survived a plane crash while coming back from the funeral. After he lost his voice.
Everyone knows there are different kinds of teachers. The boring ones, the mean ones, the ones who try too hard, the ones who stopped trying long ago. The ones you’ll never remember, and the ones you want to forget. Ms. Bixby is none of these. She’s the sort of teacher who makes you feel like school is somehow worthwhile. Who recognizes something in you that sometimes you don’t even see in yourself. Who you never want to disappoint. What Ms. Bixby is, is one of a kind.
cat will win over many of those 3rd graders making the leap. Older kids (6th grade and up) maybe not. This story about a family teetering on homelessness is one that will touch your heart and give you understanding to those standing on the side of the road with a cardboard sign saying, “Help.”
book a chance. It’s a period piece set in early Hollywood during the time of World War I. An undergraduate elective class I took many years ago helped me gain a connection to the story. I had five credits that could be outside my major and I chose a Film Studies class.
mother, an angry older brother, and a father wrapped up in his new job. This family’s move from Washington to South Carolina has not been easy.
