Friday, January 1, 2016

permission to judge!


It's true--I'm a judgy person.  It can hardly be helped when it's a strong quarter of your personality.  This trait can be problematic in everyday life, but I'm diving into 2016 with a new project that positively requires me to be judgy! This year I am serving as a Round 2 Judge for the Cybils Poetry Awards--if you're not familiar with the Cybils, read all about them here.  The process is quite formal, and after a longer period of Round 1 review performed by panelists, I and my fellow Round 2 judges (Linda Baie, Rosemary Marotta, Diane Mayr and Laura Shovan with leadership from Jone MacCulloch) have about 6 weeks to choose a winner from the seven finalists....and here they are!


Product Details

HOUSE ARREST 
by K. A. Holt (Chronicle)

Product Details 
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOK OF NATURE POETRY
edited by J. Patrick Lewis (National Geographic Children’s Books)
 Product Details

FLUTTER AND HUM/ALETEO Y ZUMBIDO
by Julie Paschkis (Henry Holt)
Product Details

PAPER HEARTS
 by Meg Wiviott (Margaret K. McElderry Books)
Product Details

THE POPCORN ASTRONAUTS AND OTHER BITEABLE RHYMES
by Barbara Ruddel, illustrated by Joan Rankin ((Margaret K. McElderry Books)

Product Details 
FULL CICADA MOON 
by Marilyn Hilton (Dial Books)
Product Details
WINTER BEES AND OTHER POEMS OF THE COLD
 by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen (HMH Books for Young Readers) 
Congratulations to all the authors and their publishers! Here is my starting point: I own one of these books already; I know quite a bit about two more, and nothing at all about the other four. Oh what fun it is to look forward to deep reading (for which I have less time than I ought to these days. How is it that parenting teens is so much more time-consuming than parenting toddlers?)

The Poetry Roundup for the first day of the new year is with Mary Lee (and Franki, celebrating TEN years of blogging) at A Year of Reading. All the best to everyone is what we all--I hope we ALL--fervently wish for the world...simple kindness and deep respect.  Poetry is always a part of that.

Bonus video: President Obama tells Kid President how kids and adults can work together to change the world. It's a couple of years old now, but it applies just as well today.


3 comments:

  1. Good luck with your judging, Heidi! Looks like fun, difficult work. Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was a first round judge. What a whirlwind of reading! I hope you will enjoy the choices, but I don't envy your task one bit.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sorry we missed you in the roundup! No hijinks or requests for removal of your link! Maybe user error, maybe a temporary flicker in the Internet's pulse.

    Good luck picking a winner!!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for joining in the wild rumpus!