Cybils Time! Judging and... Nominating

I'm excited to be a judge for the upcoming Cybils awards - I'll be serving as a finals round judge in the poetry category. And I'm super excited to be joining such great folks in looking at this year's children's poetry books. Check out these fab folk:

The round one judges (who read 'em all and hand over a smaller group to us final round judges):

Bruce Black, Wordswimmer
Elaine Magliaro, Wild Rose Reader
Gina Ruiz, AmoXcalli and The Graphic Landscape
Laura Purdie Salas, Writing the World for Kids
Sylvia Vardell, Poetry for Children

The final rounders (who debate and discuss and ultimately determine one book to get the Cybil):

Kelly Fineman, Writing and Ruminating
Sara Lewis Holmes, Read Write Believe
Greg Pincus, right here at GottaBook
Jama Rattigan, Alphabet Soup
Liz Scanlon, Liz in Ink

Kelly, by the way, is the "fearless leader" of the whole poetry category. Lots o' work, that, and I'm glad she's there to do it.

Now, the Cybils start taking nominations on Friday, October 1st. And the thing is, if folks don't nominate, then we judges have nothing to do. So start thinking about your favorite books (not just in poetry, but across the kidlit board) and get ready to nominate. You can only do one book per category... but there are a lot of categories!

UNFAIR - a county fair poem/a life's unfair poem

UNFAIR
by
Greg Pincus

The fluffy candy looked bright pink,
But it was really cotton.
The caramel apples looked delish…
But every one was rotten.

The petting zoo had great big signs,
You Only Look -- Don’t Touch.
The penny candy cost twelve bucks -
I didn’t have that much.

My giant lolli fell apart:
The spiraled rings uncoiled.
I waited for the rides so long
My deep-fried Twinkie spoiled.

I went to watch a sheep get sheared.
Instead, it cut my hair!
I sure can’t wait 'til I go home...
I don’t like this Unfair.

The Poetry Friday roundup is over at Karin Edmisten's Blog with the Shockingly Clever Title. Head on over and see what's poetically what this week in the blogosphere.

And as always, if you want to get all my new poems (and only the poems) emailed to you for freeee as they hit the blog, enter your email address in the box below then click subscribe!

Emcee is in the House (OK, Fine - in Orange County)

On Sunday, October 3rd, I'm going to be down in Costa Mesa at the Orange County Children's Book Festival. There's a ton of fun to be had there with authors and illustratrors galore as well as other entertainment. Oh, and booooooooks!

Plus, if you come on by the illustrators' stage, you'll see ME as the stage MC! I'm excited and working on all my old comedy routines and... okay, not really on the routines. But I am excited and hope that you come on by and say hello.

Talking PoetrE

I have a guest post up over at David L. Harrison's blog today, talking about poetry and the online world (I'm an optimist, by the way). I hope you'll go check it out, and I also urge you to check out David's blog in total. It is packed with great stuff.

The Poetry Friday Roundup is up over at Elaine Magliaro's Wild Rose Reader today (another blog you should explore). Be off and enjoy some poetic thoughts and posts... and I'll see you back here soon.

Those Were The Days!

It's volunteer librarian season hereabouts again. This year, besides the elementary school where I've been involved for five years, I'm also spearheading the startup of a middle school library. I'll be yakking more about this in the weeks ahead, I'm sure, but I've already noticed a "probably good for my writing but tough on my time management" issue....

Every book that comes into our system goes through my hands. I've been known to, uh, read a few of them. Okay... a lot of them. When it was all picturebooks, I could enjoy dozens and still get the library cleaned up in the limited time I can devote to volunteering.

Now, though, more middle grade novels are coming through my hands. And yes... I'm reading. I can't get through dozens anymore! I guess it's a lucky thing for me that we haven't built up much of a collection yet.... Unluckily for me, most of what I'm scrounging up is slightly older... and covers a lot of what I somehow missed when it came out.

I often put out a call for donations (I will again!), but right now I'm accepting donations of reading time. Feel free to pass some along. Thanks!

Shhhhhhhhh.

I am being very quiet... though I am not hunting wabbit. Still, I just looked hereabouts and realized it's been a week since I posted! Why is that?

Well, I was busy saving the world in a top-secret undercover mission involving books, the beach, lots of coffee (both iced and hot), and cotton candy. That's all I'm at liberty to say, but I'm sure you can all read between the lines and, uh, figure out the, uh, top-secret mission. Yeah. The mission.

But it's almost done. Only a couple days left, in fact, and then I know we'll all sleep better. Or at least I will!

See you then....