I’ve loved judging the first round Cybils Awards for picture books and board books. There were more than 300 books to read, but it’s been a pleasure to read outstanding books that I hadn’t encountered earlier in the year.
If you don’t know how this award works, anyone can nominate one book in each category. If the book is already nominated though, it cannot be nominated again. All these books then become the short list.
First-round judged read every single book on the shortlist, assuming they are available. I reserved books at my library 50 at a time. I had read some books earlier in the year. Publishers send us books that we can’t get from the library. In a pinch, we read books via eBook or by watching a video read aloud.
I had a very difficult time narrowing down my shortlists. At one point, my picture book short list had over 50 books on it. That’s how great the picture book nominations were! For board books, I had a tougher time. Many board books have interactive bells and whistles that make them fun to read. I balanced that against straight-up text board books. The books that grabbed my attention and would not be painful to read at least 10 times made my list.
My Cybil Award short list is part of the mix with six other judges. We are judging on best book AND what children will like (which is different criteria from, say, the Caldecott). Stay tuned to see which books make the final cut!
What picture books and board books have you enjoyed all year? Thanks for sharing!
My Cybil Award Picture Book Short List
Drawn Together by Minh Le, illustrated by Dan Santat
The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Rafael Lopez
Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson, illustrated by Frank Morrison
Holes in the Sky by Patricia Polacco
Imagine by Juan Felipe Herrera, illustrated by Lauren Castillo
Mixed: A Colorful Story by Arree Chung
The Remember Balloons by Jessie Oliveros, illustrated by Dana Wulfekotte
My Cybil Award Picture Book Honorable Mentions
All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold, illustrated by Suzanne Kaufman
The Day War Came by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Rebecca Cobb
Franny’s Father is a Feminist by Rhoda Leet, illustrated by Megan Walker
How To Code a Sandcastle by Josh Funk, illustrated by Sara Palacios
I Walk With Vanessa by Kerascoët
Marwan’s Journey by Patricia de Arias, illustrated by Laura Borràs
Ocean Meets Sky by The Fan Brothers
The Rough Patch by Brian Lies
A Stone for Sascha by Aaron Becker
My Cybil Award Board Book Short List
Mirror Play by Monte Shin
Exotic Fruit by Huy Voun Lee
I Look Up to … Michelle Obama by Anna Membrino, illustrated by Fatti Burke
Llamaphones by Janik Coat
Shapes (Zoe and Zack) by Jacques Duquennoy
Why The Face? by Jean Jullien
8 Little Planets by Chris Ferrie
My Cybil Award Board Book Honorable Mentions
Opposites (Zoe and Zack) by Jacques Duquennoy
Tails by Flowerpot Press
These Colors Are Bananas: Published in Association with the Whitney Museum of American Art by Jason Fulford
When Your Monkeys Won’t Go to Bed by Susanna Leonard Hill, illustrated by Daniel Wiseman
Who Can? by Charles Ghigna
Watch Me Grow! (Baby Firsts) by Flowerpot Press
TouchThinkLearn: Wiggles by Claire Zucchelli-Romer
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My books:
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World
- Junior Library Guild Gold selection
- Selected as one of 100 Outstanding Picture Books of 2023 by dPICTUS and featured at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair
- Starred review from School Library Journal
- Chicago Library’s Best of the Best
- 2023 INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist
- Green Earth Book Award longlist
- Imagination Soup’s 35 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 for Kids
Amazon / Barefoot Books / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Scholastic / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Although I’m sure it’s a lot of work, that’s so exciting that you get to be a judge. A friend of ours is a member of the Grammy’s association and judges that each year.
Hi Dee,
Wow! Now that is a huge honor! I can’t imagine judging the Grammy’s! Must be quite a challenge.
What a great list, Mia & what an honor to be a judge! It must be so hard to whittle things down from all the great books that are out there!
I have been busy, and unable to comment on so many of your previous wonderful posts, Mia–sorry about that!
Hi Maria,
Gosh, no problem at all! It was fun but so hard to narrow down the list. The Cybils Award shortlists will be announced on January 1st! I can’t wait. It was pretty smooth for my group to narrow it down; probably easier than each of us individually agonizing over our own shortlists. It really helped that the online database helped to organize our own shortlists. Then we went through a ranking (a suggestion from our Cybils group leader). The lists fell gracefully out of those rankings with email discussions if you wanted to pitch a book to the others.
Glad to see you are a judge. I don’t know how you find the time. I nominated in almost every category this year. I like you list, as some of those were my favorites too!
Hi Pat,
Thanks so much! It was fun to judge and my way to educate myself on what makes a great picture book. The hardest part was getting the books to my house. Either the books were slow to come in because my library system didn’t have them or they were lots of reserves on them, or I literally had to make multiple trips in a day because I couldn’t carry more than 15 books myself to my car.
Mia, you really have a great list of books read for the year. For 2019, I hope i can improve my reading habits. Its something I must improve.
Hi Jamb Caps,
The awards forced me to read a ton of books and I’m grateful for that. I hope you enjoy some great books in 2019!
Thanks for sharing your list. I’ve read & loved several of these & just added a few others to my library request list. And congratulations on reading the 300+ nominated books. I thought 49 poetry books was a long list, but the #PB/board books far outnumbered them.
Hi Patricia,
I think you read more pages than I did for Cybils poetry! We read a lot of books but board books and picture books are very fast reads. The only challenge was getting the physical books home.
What an amazing resource. Thanks for posting it.
Thank so much Gayle!