Kimberly Hirsh

Today is the first day of the third annual Summer Blog Blast Tour. This event is organized by Colleen of Chasing Ray to showcase authors and expose them to a wider online audience.

You can find today's interviews at the following places:

Andrew Mueller at Chasing Ray
Kekla Magoon at Fuse #8
Carrie Jones at Writing & Ruminating
Amber Benson at Bildungsroman
Greg van Eekhout at Shaken & Stirred

(Many  thanks to slayground for the code above!)

Come back tomorrow for my interview with Amber Benson!

Over at Guys Lit Wire, you can participate in the Guys Lit Wire Book Fair for Boys. Purchase a book or a few and send them to the LA Juvenile Justice System, which currently has no library. The Book Fair is already a great success but you can make it an even bigger one!

I thought I’d take some time today to tell you what I’m reading currently.

In the car, I’m listening to Rabbit Hill - the 1945 Newbery Medal winner. Times are very different now. I can’t imagine anything as slow-moving as this book becoming popular in modern times. I have a hard time focusing. At first I thought maybe I just wasn’t okay with anthropomorphic animals, but then I remembered Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. So I’ve determined that it really is that this book is spending a lot of time on characterization and building suspense about the “new folks” coming to the hill, and I just wished they’d get there already. (I’m far enough along now that the “new folks” have arrived, yay!)

I’m almost done reading Ghosts of Albion: Accursed, which I’m reading in preparation for my upcoming interview with Amber Benson. (Thanks, slayground!) I don’t think I’ll be done with all three of her books in time for the interview, as I need to send the questions on in the next day or two, but I hope to have read them before I post it and then have a few reviews to post as well.

From the library, I’ve got No Sheep For You, a knitting book for people who can’t use wool. My sister is allergic to wool and this book has a lot of yarn-related info for crocheters that’s just as valuable as it is for knitters, so I thought I’d check it out and see if maybe I’d like to buy it for her. (She’s a knitter; I don’t crochet with wool on principle because I want my sister to be able to touch the things I make.)

I’ve got a whole host of Newbery winner audiobooks to keep me company on my daily commute, and I’m also working my way through a list I made of YA novels written by members of Romance Writers of America. Finally, I’ve checked out a book called You Grow Girl, which I hope will tell me what I need to know to get into urban gardening.

What about you? What are you reading now or getting ready to read?

Ever since Steph Landry spilled a big red Super Big Gulp on queen bee Lauren Moffat’s white D&G skirt back in sixth grade, people in her town have used Steph’s name to describe anyone who is clumsy, oafish, or generally lame. “Don’t be such a Steph!” is such a common phrase in Bloomville that even the little children of customers in Steph’s parents’ bookstore use it with each other.

But all that is going to change, because Steph has THE BOOK. Steph discovered an old book called How to Be Popular among her friend Jason’s grandmother’s things, and Steph is following its advice to the letter. Once she’s popular, though, how will her unpopular friends react?

I “read” the audiobook version of this, which is voiced by the talented Kate Reinders, who has played Glinda in Wicked in Chicago and on Broadway. Reinders does an amazing job, and I love the fact that I was listening to such a clear Glinda-voice read since one of Glinda’s biggest numbers in Wicked is called “Popular.” While the text on its own is a lot of fun, I think Reinders brought a lot to it and made it more enjoyable than it would have been just to read, for me, anyway.

How to Be Popular is a fun tale of an unpopular girl, her meteoric rise to popularity, and her (unsurprising) realization that popularity is a lot of work. I’m having a hard time articulating the book’s strengths, but it is a good time and the characters and situations are familiar to anyone who went to high school ever. It does suffer from a few flaws. As is true in The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot makes some references that were timely when she was writing but are already, less than three years after the book’s release, a bit dated. I’m not sure how long Brittany Murphy will be remembered by teenagers, and I don’t feel like she was ever a household name. These instances, however, are few and far between and the universal themes of wanting to be liked and failing to appreciate that which we have overcome those problems.

While I’m usually inclined to see it as a flaw, the book’s predictability is actually very comforting. This is a romantic comedy, and we go to RomCom expecting certain things. The girl will get A guy, even if it’s not THE guy, and with this one I saw it coming within the first few minutes. I felt like I knew exactly how it would all unfold, and I was not far off. But that’s what we want with romantic comedy, and How to Be Popular satisfied me.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick, fun, life-affirming read. It’s pleasant in its simplicity. To quote Giles in the Buffy episode “Lie to Me,” “the good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.” Sometimes that’s the story you need.

[As an aside: I had to rack my brain to figure out who my own high school’s equivalent of Mark Finley, uberpopular but also very nice guy, was. Once I figured it out, it was kind of fun to remember how I ran into him a couple of years ago and realized that my geeky fiance grew up way cuter than he did. Even though I don’t wish him ill or anything. He actually was a really nice guy.]

Book: How to Be Popular Author: Meg Cabot Publisher: Harper Teen Original Publication Date: July 2006 Pages: 304 Age Range: Young Adult Buy it: IndieBound - Powell’s - Amazon

 I just signed up for MotherReader’s 48 Hour Book Challenge.  I had a lot of fun with this back in 2007 but didn’t participate last year, but I’m back now!  I have no idea what I’ll read.  I have several to-read lists: readergirlz recs, Cybils nominees/winners, YA Romance/RomCom, books that I want to read because of reviews…  I’ll probably hit up the library for a mix and see what happens.

Won’t you join us?

LATIN (from The Latin Library):

Id metuens, veterisque memor Saturnia belli,
prima quod ad Troiam pro caris gesserat Argis—
necdum etiam causae irarum saevique dolores 25
exciderant animo: manet alta mente repostum
iudicium Paridis spretaeque iniuria formae,
et genus invisum, et rapti Ganymedis honores.
His accensa super, iactatos aequore toto
Troas, reliquias Danaum atque immitis Achilli, 30
arcebat longe Latio, multosque per annos
errabant, acti fatis, maria omnia circum.
Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem!

ENGLISH (my translation):
Fearing this and remembering the war, Juno Saturnia,
because she had foremost waged war against Troy for her beloved Argives
(indeed the causes of her anger and cruel passions
had not yet fallen from her spirit; the stored up judgement
of Paris and the injury to her rejected beauty and the hated race
and the stolen honors of Ganymede remain at the top of her mind) –
inflamed by these things also she was keeping the Trojans
tossed on the whole sea, the leavings of the Danaids and of fierce Achilles,
far from Latium, and they kept wandering for many years
driven by the fates around all the seas.
So great a burden it was to establish the Roman race.

MY NOTES:
While I love all of the Aeneid, there are specific lines that pop out as being just perfect. Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem! is one such line. I just love it. If I ever get a proper microphone (and I suspect I will soonish), maybe I’ll start adding an audio component to my poetry Friday posts so you can hear this stuff read aloud in the Latin. It is just so beautiful.

Other Vergil posts:
Aeneid I.1-7
Aeneid I.8-11
Aeneid I.8-11
Aeneid I.12-18
Aeneid I.19-22

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to my feed so you will get my other translation/poetry posts.

I don’t know if this will become a regular feature, but here’s a quick thought I’m having today:

What happens when the quirky best friend becomes the main character?

I was thinking about this a few days ago when I revisited the paltry amount I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2008.  I, myself, actually preferred my narrator’s best friends to the narrator herself.  And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, maybe I should write THAT book - about those people.

I then thought about books with characters who really tugged at my heart.  It’s a convention in video games that the main character should be rather non-descript.  This makes it easier for players to identify with him or her (almost always him, in games).  This is why it’s funny when you get people talking about which video game character is most like them and the’ll say "I’m just like so-and-so!" and all I can think is, "So you have a mysterious past and terrible tragedy and no personality traits?"

It feels natural to me that books should operate the same way, and I think one of the reasons the Twilight series is so popular is that Bella is (at least in the first one) average and non-descript.  She has average hair and average intelligence, she’s averagely pretty and can’t figure out why anybody would think she’s special, but she IS special… etc.  (I haven’t read any except Twilight so I’m basing all statements on that.)

So for my NaNo I wrote that girl - completely lacking in personality except that she was sometimes sullen but also loved her parents very much (something any girl with good parents can relate to, I think).  But her best friend had loads of personality - wild hair, funny clothes, was a band kid, etc.

And she interested me SO MUCH MORE.  My favorite characters in all of kidlit/YA are probably Lola Cep from Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen and Cyd Charisse from Gingerbread.  These are both distinctive characters, dramatic and alternachick.  Lola’s friend Ella is absolutely every-girl, and I like her quite well but I don’t find her interesting.  (I haven’t read the book about her.)

Anyway.  I guess those of us who consider ourselves a bit weird need characters that reflect us, which is why we do get those quirky kids as main characters sometimes, too.

LATIN (from The Latin Library): Progeniem sed enim Troiano a sanguine duci audierat, Tyrias olim quae verteret arces; 20 hinc populum late regem belloque superbum venturum excidio Libyae: sic volvere Parcas.

ENGLISH (my translation): But she had heard indeed that a race to be led from Trojan blood would at some time overturn those Tyrian citadels; this people ruling widely and proud in war was going to come for the destruction of Libya: thus the Fates unrolled.

Poetry Friday Roundup is at Under the Covers today.

Other Vergil posts: Aeneid I.1-7 Aeneid I.8-11 Aeneid I.8-11 Aeneid I.12-18

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1. Stay up-to-date on the latest kidlitosphere news. It can be hard to keep up with everything that's going on in the Kidlitosphere. The News Blog at KC has a column listing important dates and compiles information about Kidlitosphere events, award nominations and wins, and Jen Robinson's visits to other blogs.
2. Find ways to participate in the community. With information on challenges, blog carnivals and multi-blog weekly events, KC's Resources page provides you everything you need to know to jump right into the Kidlitosphere, whether you are new to the community or have been around a while but just have gotten a bit lonely.
3. Find new books to read. On the aforementioned Resources page, KC lists multiple resources that will help you learn about new-to-you books and decide if you'd like to read them.
4. Make new friends. l've been perusing the membership lists at KC and am delighted to find several kindred spirits who I hope will become friends as I engage with them in the comments of their blogs.
5. Keep up with your favorite authors and illustrators. KC has a comprehensive list of author/illustrator-bloggers. For me, the accessibility these blogs provide is remarkable. I want to squee with delight every time I interact with one of my favorite authors.

What are some other ways you’re using Kidlitosphere Central?

From Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast:

As a reminder, these Sunday posts are our weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. Absolutely anyone, of course, is welcome to list kicks — even if, or especially if, you’ve never done so before.

I’ll be featuring stuff from the past few weeks, because I haven’t participated in a while.

1. A couple of weeks ago I learned that our local big-name-theatre that brings in touring companies will be bringing in The Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, Spring Awakening, and Beauty and the Beast next year.

2. We had several days of good weather this week, so I went on walks - around the neighborhood, to a restaurant, to the grocery store, etc.

3. On a related note, I realized that if I walk for just ten minutes a day every day that’s more time spent walking than if I were to do twenty minutes three times a week. Ten minutes is more manageable for me because I’m easily fatigued recently (I think it’s allergies) and have been having some hip issues, so it’s good to feel like those won’t keep me from getting to walk.

4. I’ve been doing ProBlogger’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog and I feel very good about it.

5. I recently read The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One and it spoke to me very much. I now am much less overwhelmed by the many worthwhile things to do in the world and know if I take on just a few at a time, I can eventually get to all of the ones that capture my interest.

6. I have a nice stack of non-fiction books to read from the library, and all of them excite me.

7. I am at a place in life where if I need to fall asleep on the couch at 8:30 pm, I can do so and everything is just fine. (Likewise if, on a Sunday, I need to take a nap around 3:15…)

What are your kicks this week?

LATIN (from The Latin Library): Urbs antiqua fuit, Tyrii tenuere coloni, Karthago, Italiam contra Tiberinaque longe ostia, dives opum studiisque asperrima belli; quam Iuno fertur terris magis omnibus unam
posthabita coluisse Samo; hic illius arma, hic currus fuit; hoc regnum dea gentibus esse, si qua fata sinant, iam tum tenditque fovetque.

ENGLISH (my translation): There was an ancient city (the Tyrian settlers held it) Carthage, far away facing Italy and the Tiber’s mouth, rich in resources and very fierce in the pursuits of war; the only city which Juno is said to have cherished more than all the other lands, with Samo estemmed less: here were her arms, here was her chariot; now already the goddess aimed for and cherished this city to be the ruling power for the races, if some fate would allow it.

Poetry Friday Roundup is at Becky’s Book Reviews today.

Other Vergil posts: Aeneid I.1-7 Aeneid I.8-11

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In case you haven’t seen it yet, Kidlitosphere Central is a hub of activity/resources for the society of bloggers in children’s and young adult literature. I’m honored to be listed among its members. I spent part of the day yesterday and today poking around the membership list and wanted to share just a few interesting posts I found. You can expect more posts like this from me in the future.

From 100 Scope Notes: Three Tips for a Successful Book Fair
When I was a student, the book fair was one of my favorite school events. To my knowledge, the school where I teach does not have one, which I think is typical of a high school. I don’t know if as a librarian/media coordinator I will ever get to produce one, but if I do, I will be going back to this post for help.

From the Almost Librarian: Check It Out At Your Local Library. An excellent catalog of all the resources libraries have to offer that patrons might not know about. I would love to see this turned into a handout to be distributed at schools and libraries and maybe other places, too.

From Becky’s Book Reviews: Why Keep Blogging? Becky asks many good questions about reviewer-author relationships, blog commenting etiquette, and explains her thoughts on these issues.

From Biblio File: Reading Journals On the brink of filling up her current reading journal, Jennie shares photographs and asks for suggestions on a new notebook to use.

From Bildungsroman: Interviews of Hope Little Willow is asking authors for their definition of hope and compiling links to her interviews with them at this post.

From Blue Rose Girls: libraries i have seen Grace Lin shares photographs of the various school libraries she’s toured.

From The Book Chook: What to Do Before You Drop Everything (and read) I missed DEAR day, which was April 12, but Susan’s methods for finding a new book are valuable any day of the year.

I hope you enjoy these posts. Look for more next time I go poking around Kidlitosphere Central!

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As my mind turns to my new career as a school media coordinator, I find myself even more committed to promoting literacy than I have been as a reader, a student, and a teacher. So for those of you who may not have heard of all of them, here are seven resources for literacy activists.

1. America's Literacy Directory, http://www.literacydirectory.org/ Use this directory, provided by the National Institute for Literacy, to find local literacy programs. You can search for programs for children or adults, programs for employers, Learning Disability organizations, and volunteer opportunities.
2. First Book, http://www.firstbook.org/ First Book provides access to books to children who might not otherwise have it. Local advisory boards select programs to receive book grants and then work to fulfill those grants through fund-raising and other activities. The site provides resources for individuals interested in finding or starting an advisory board. The Campus Advisory Board program provides college and university students the opportunity to directly make a difference.
3. Kids Need to Read, http://www.kidsneedtoread.org Founded by actor Nathan Fillion and author P. J. Haarsma, KNTR donates books to schools which may lack funds to develop their own libraries and to clinics which then give the books to low-income families. This organization is a favorite of pop culture and sci fi/fantasy fans, as evidenced by its recent success in auctioning a photo of the cast of the online web series, The Guild.
4. The National Center for Family Literacy, http://www.famlit.org While many organizations focus on providing support for literacy in public spaces like schools and libraries, NCFL focuses on the place where most of us gain our love of reading: the home. NCFL's site provides listings of local family literacy programs which provide training to parents on how to read with their children, as well as an action center which sends out advocacy notices and provides information about government policies affecting literacy.
5. The National Institute for Literacy, http://www.nifl.gov/ NIL is a government agency established by the National Literacy Act in 1991. The website provides information on literacy for all ages, as well as publications, grant listings, and several literacy-related online discussion lists.
6. Reading is Fundamental, http://www.rif.org/ RIF sponsors several initiatives to promote literacy and provides information for educators, parents, and kids on subjects like motivating kids to read and choosing good books. RIF also frequently emails action alerts and includes a list of volunteer opportunities. My favorite part of the site is the Generation RIF page, a place for adults who benefited from the program in their childhood to reminisce through text and photos.
   
7. Share a Story, Shape a Future, http://shareastory-shapeafuture.blogspot.com/ This kidlitosphere initiative, inspired by Jen Robinson's exploration at her blog of how we can encourage reading aloud, now has its own blog. It includes an archive of the blog tour which kicked off the program, as well as a Literacy Resource Kit, downloadable bookmarks, and promotional materials for the program.
   

Do you have any resources to add to the list? Please share them in the comments!

UPDATE! Other Resources for literacy activists include: Everybody Wins, http://www.everybodywins.org/, dedicated to building the skills and love of reading among low-income elementary school students.

Reading Rockets, http://www.readingrockets.org, a multimedia project that includes television programs, online services, and professional development opportunities.

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I’ve waited to share this with the internet at large until I told my colleagues at work.  But I’ve done that, so now I can tell you:

I’ve been accepted to (and enrolled in) the School Media Coordinator program at the School of Information and Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill.

In case you aren’t familiar with library schools, UNC-CH is tied for #1 in the nation.

So I feel pretty special.   

From Booking Through Thursday:

What is the best book you’ve never read?

This is hard for me to decide.  The Time Traveler’s Wife immediately came to mind.  I can’t think of any others right now, but that might be the sleep deprivation talking.  I’m sure there are tons, but that’s the only one I keep thinking, "Oh, so-and-so recommends that highly.  I should read it."  ("So-and-so" is more than one person.)

What about you?

Over at Read Roger, The Horn Book editor Roger Sutton wants to know:

I’m curious to know what rules other people out there might have for Giving Up. (And Fessing Up: how much of a book do you have to have read in order to say that you read it?)

How long do you wait to stop reading a book?  Do you slog on through anyway?

I used to give a book 100 pages, but now I usually give it 50.  I figure if after 50 pages I don’t care what happens, I won’t care after 100 either.  But then there are books where I kind of don’t care but they are interesting enough that I will go on and finish them.  I recently read Queen Victoria’s Bomb, which falls into this category.

I usually don’t say that I’ve read a book unless I completely consumed the narrative.  Sometimes this does involve the kind of dual-level reading though, where while you are sort of taking in the words on the page, you’re really thinking about something else.  I’m never sure how to determine if I’ve fully read a non-fiction book.  Do I need to read all the appendices to claim I’ve read it?  What if it’s got recipes sprinkled throughout?  If I don’t read "Preheat oven to 400 degrees," does that mean I haven’t really read the book?

What do you think?

Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui, by Karen Kingston, is both an organization book and a spiritual text.  The book is divided into three parts: Understanding Clutter, Identifying Clutter, and Clearing Clutter.  In Part 1, Kingston introduces Feng Shui and her method of Space Clearing.  She explains what things are clutter and how it affects you.  She discusses why we keep clutter and how we can begin to let go of it.  In Part 2, she explains the Feng Shui Bagua, "a grid that reveals how the different areas of any building you occupy are connected to specific aspects of your life," in great detail.  She identifies common clutter zones within the home and types of clutter we may find there.  Finally, Part 3 explains how to clear clutter from your home, body, mind, emotions, and spirit.

Clear Your Clutter is a great book for readers who want a quick introduction to Feng Shui and are ready to make a change in their lives.  The chapters are short, and Kingston’s voice is both no-nonsense and encouraging.  I read this book more than a year ago; I have since removed much clutter from my life, though much remains.  Perhaps it is time for a re-read.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to get her or his home and heart in order or who is looking for a quick, simple introduction to the principles of Feng Shui.

Book: Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui [affiliate link]
Author: Karen Kingston
Publisher: Broadway Books
Original Publication Date: 1999
Pages: 192
Source of Book: Borrowed
Related Links: FlyLady, UnClutterer

From Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast:

As a reminder, these Sunday posts are our weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. Absolutely anyone, of course, is welcome to list kicks — even if, or especially if, you’ve never done so before.

This Week’s Kicks:

1. Today I bought this amazing crown, which I may or may not wear in my wedding: www.etsy.com/view_tran…

2. Yesterday the Mr.Me-to-Be and I headed down to the beach to visit possible wedding sites and explore. While it was kinda rainy and gross, and the first place we looked at disappointed a bit, it led to some productive thought and research.

3. Friday I received some very good news that I’m not quite ready to share with the world yet, but I will as soon as I can.

4. Thursday was a rather restful day for me.

5. Wednesday, one of my colleagues who accidentally broke the driver’s side mirror on my car paid to have it fixed. It was very good of her to take care of this promptly, when she could easily have just driven off and never told me she was the one who’d done it.

6. Tuesday I went to dinner with my sister and her fiance.

7. Monday I didn’t have a meeting (because my colleague and I scheduled ours for Tuesday instead) which meant I had time to prepare, which made my Tuesday much less hectic.

I do a lot of blog reading, in topics including blogging, craft, educational technology, fashion, video games, children’s and young adult literature, organization, personal branding, personal development, personal finance, productivity, and writing. Via a post on the Personal Branding Blog, I found this excellent post: You don’t need a blog topic. Just start writing.

I’m forever starting new blogs on niche topics. Currently I have them on the topics of craft/design, personal development, reading, and theatre. But I’ve felt a new project coming on, and Monica’s post inspired me. Her advice:

Write about what you’re learning.

I’m learning all the time. It is my favorite thing to do. So here at kimberlyhirsh.com, that’s what I’m going to do: write about what I’m learning. This may fall under any of the categories about which I read.  Learning is always bringing in something new, and will always give me plenty about which to write.

So welcome. I hope you learn from my learning!

Over at Just One More Book, Andrea and Mark are celebrating their wedding anniversary with a meme. Here’s the question:

Which children’s book best represents your marriage? your life?

I’m not married (yet! July 22!), but I’ve been with Will (that’s his name) long enough to know exactly the book for this:

Cinderella Skeleton (The link takes you to my earlier post about the book.) A little bit morbid, very sweet. Not at all serious. And that’s us.

(It was that or the one from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark where the girl wears the green ribbon around her neck and if she takes it off, her head will fall off. For my 18th birthday, Will gave me a necklace that I take off so rarely that I do tell people that if I take it off my head will just roll right to the ground.)

As for my life, I have to go with Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. Lola Cepp is excessively dramatic, wears really strange but carefully calculated outfits, and is a flamingo in a flock of pigeons. That’s me.

 Sometimes, I take it into my head to get a really good handle on a topic/genre.  I often ask Little Willow for a custom reading list.  But this time, I’ve generated my own.

I am going to acquaint myself with the genre of Steampunk.  I’m so usually surrounded by people intimately familiar with this, at least as a cultural phenomenon, that I find it absurd when I have to explain it.  But I find it more refreshing than absurd, so in case you aren’t familiar with it, it’s a subgenre of speculative fiction (sci fi/fantasy) that deals with alternative futures based on an imagined past.  Basically, ask yourself what life would be like if the great classic Sci Fi of the Victorian era (Jules Verne, H. G. Wells) had been real.

Sound fun?  The name is a combination of Steam, the primary way of powering technology in such an imaginary world, with the affix -punk, taken from the genre of Cyberpunk.  Steampunk often has an anti-establishment sensibility, but with a more optimistic bent than Cyberpunk and other speculative genres.  This suits my personality perfectly, I think.

Additionally, there is a Steampunk aesthetic, generally Neo-Victorian with lots of gears and buckles, which really appeals to me.

Here’s my reading list:

Proto-Steampunk
Gormenghast Novels (esp Titus Alone), Mervyn Peake
Worlds of the Imperium, Keith Laumer
Queen Victoria’s Bomb, Ronald W. Clark 
A Nomad of the Time Streaks, Michael Moorcock

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 You can find it at their site.

If nothing else, this is an excellent way to find new books to read.

What are the Cybils?  They are the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards.

From the About Page:

Our purpose is two-fold:

• Reward the children’s and young adult authors (and illustrators – let’s not forget them) whose books combine the highest literary merit and “kid appeal.” What’s that mean? If some la-di-dah awards can be compared to brussel sprouts, and other, more populist ones to gummy bears, we’re thinking more like organic chicken nuggets. We’re yummy and nutritious.
• Foster a sense of community among bloggers who write about children’s and YA literature, highlight our best reviewers (and shamelessly promote their blogs) and provide a forum for the similarly obsessed.

 1. Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, Karen Kingston
2. Craft, Inc., Meg Mateo Ilasco
3. Indigara, Tanith Lee
4. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
5. Jessie’s Mountain, Kerry Madden
6. Finding Serenity, Jane Espenson and Glenn Yeffeth, ed.
7. Valiant, Holly Black [Audio CD] 
8. The Twelve Kingdoms - Volume 1: Sea of Shadow, Fuyumi Ono
9. The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan
10. Fearless, Tim Lott
11. Erec Rex: The Dragon’s Eye, Kaza Kingsley
12. Bronx Masquerade, Nikki Grimes
13. Soon I Will Be Invincible, Austin Grossman
14. It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, Peter Walsh
15. The Gatekeeper Trilogy, Book Two: Ghost Roads, Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder
16. Getting Things Done, David Allen
17. Y: The Last Man - Unmanned, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
18. Y: The Last Man - Cycles, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
19. Y: The Last Man - One Small Step, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
20. Y: The Last Man - Safeword, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
21. Y: The Last Man - Ring of Truth, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
22. Y: The Last Man - Girl on Girl, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
23. The Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
24. V for Vendetta, Alan Moore and David Lloyd
25. 300, Frank Miller and Lynn Varley
26. Organizing from the Inside Out, Julie Morgenstern
27. The Gatekeeper Trilogy, Book Three: Sons of Entropy, Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder 
28. A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray 
29. R.O.D.: Read or Dream, Volume 1 : Three Sisters–One Power, Hideyuki Kurata
30. Strangers in Paradise Pocket Book 1, Terry Moore
31. Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson
32. Goy Crazy, Melissa Schorr
33. The Amulet of Samarkand, Jonathan Stroud 
34. Return to Labyrinth, Volume I, Jake T. Forbes and Chris Lie

1. Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, Karen Kingston
2. Craft, Inc., Meg Mateo Ilasco
3. Indigara, Tanith Lee
4. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
5. Jessie’s Mountain, Kerry Madden
6. Finding Serenity, Jane Espenson and Glenn Yeffeth, ed.
7. Valiant, Holly Black [Audio CD] 
8. The Twelve Kingdoms - Volume 1: Sea of Shadow, Fuyumi Ono
9. The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan
10. Fearless, Tim Lott
11. Erec Rex: The Dragon’s Eye, Kaza Kingsley
12. Bronx Masquerade, Nikki Grimes
13. Soon I Will Be Invincible, Austin Grossman
14. It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, Peter Walsh
15. The Gatekeeper Trilogy, Book Two: Ghost Roads, Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder
16. Getting Things Done, David Allen
17. Y: The Last Man - Unmanned, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
18. Y: The Last Man - Cycles, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
19. Y: The Last Man - One Small Step, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
20. Y: The Last Man - Safeword, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
21. Y: The Last Man - Ring of Truth, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
22. Y: The Last Man - Girl on Girl, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
23. The Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
24. V for Vendetta, Alan Moore and David Lloyd
25. 300, Frank Miller and Lynn Varley
26. Organizing from the Inside Out, Julie Morgenstern
27. The Gatekeeper Trilogy, Book Three: Sons of Entropy, Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder 
28. A Great and Terrible Beauty, Libba Bray 
29. R.O.D.: Read or Dream, Volume 1 : Three Sisters–One Power, Hideyuki Kurata
30. Strangers in Paradise Pocket Book 1, Terry Moore
31. Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson
32. Goy Crazy, Melissa Schorr
33. The Amulet of Samarkand, Jonathan Stroud