Sad News About CYBILS AWARDS

This final week in August is when the ANNUAL CYBILS AWARDS usually posted that nominations were opening for all categories. I'm saddened to report that my long-time service with the literacy leaders and book-boosters at CYBILS has ended. That's because the dedicated  VOLUNTEER board and organizers had to make a heartbreaking choice to pull the plug on their annual award program. 

This began as, and continued as, a book-bloggers' award. Their mission to encourage only the best in all books for youth championed award-deserving titles in every genre and for every reader under twenty. 

I found CYBILS while reading posts about nominees, exploring their lists, and anxiously awaiting word of the finalists and winners in each category, even in types of books I rarely read. 

Then, I worked up my nerve and volunteered to serve on an award panel. I was accepted. Across the years I took part in reading and evaluating picture books, nonfiction works for all ages, poetry, and early books (board books, chapter books, and beginning readers). I even served as a committee chair. During those annual evaluations I worked with incredible individuals and those amazing folks behind the scenes who organized and sustained an extremely complex process. And they did so with patience, grace, and enthusiasm.

I'll be forever grateful for these experiences, for the exposure to so many outstanding books and their creators, and to the CYBILS group for originating and sustaining the program for so many years. For now, the website continues in operation and includes book lists from the past. I highly recommend this as a source for great titles for readers of any and every interest. 

Take a look here: https://www.cybils.com/

Thank you, CYBILS Board and longtime volunteers. You made a difference in so many lives.

Let's Hear It For the Birds... and Dinosaurs!

When was the last time you saw a dinosaur? Particularly a T-Rex? If you think  it was at a museum (fossils or reconstructions) or in animation or a book, you are probably not correct. That's my sideways introduction to the topic of the day. You probably HAVE seen a dinosaur in the last few days... if you've seen a bird! And that's surprising close to seeing T. Rex!

Several books about dinosaur-ancestor-links to modern birds have been hitting the shelves. Books for adults and young readers. I've been devouring many of those as research for a current nonfiction writing project. Books intended for adult and for youth audiences are equally revealing and remarkable. I generally use books from the library for such reading, since I lack both the funds and the floor space for the countless books I choose to read. But among the many gems on this topic, one was so impressive that I now own my own copy. 

WELBECK Children's Books. 2026
Hatchette Children's London

CHICKENS and OTHER DINOSAURS: How Dinosaurs Became the Birds We Know Today, is written by Ben Lerwill and illustrated by Sarah Edmonds. I wasn't aware of either of these creators and enjoyed exploring their websites. Lerwill is a nonfiction researcher and writer who says he writes "clear, readable pieces from in friendly, reliable text", and I agree! Edwards produces art with accuracy but also whimsical humor. Her site is grin-inducing.

Most of us, from preschool to elders, are familiar with the science evidence that linked birds to early evolutionary sources in dinosaurs. Many, if not most, of us, have concluded that the widely known flying dinosaurs, pterodactyls, were the likely great-great-great... originators of birds we see today.

This is where untrained "assumers" have been proven wrong by science investigators. Birds of today, from chickens to hummingbirds to ostriches, appear to be living remnants of the THERAPOD group of dinosaurs. Among those the most well-known is T. Rex, but they include those ancestors with three forward-facing toes, meat-eaters who ran very fast. Oldest fossil records begin about 230 million years ago, but fossil evidence of their smaller, faster, lighter therapod versions begins about 160 million years ago. So, when the author writes,

"When you are looking at a bird, you are looking at a living dinosaur,"

you must keep that time scale in mind. The generational changes that shaped monstrous T. Rex into the sparrow on your feeder are massive, and yet the changes were not simply a side branch on a family tree. That sparrow and all birds share a significantly similar DNA link directly to their theropod origins. 

This incredibly comprehensive and yet child-friendly book incorporates creative sidebar placements with informative illustrations, paleontology and social science evolution debates, along with a thoroughly accurate and exciting explanation of what makes a bird a bird: FEATHERS!

Not necessarily flight, since we know that not all birds fly. But flight certainly did aid in those evolving theropods who could travel to available food sources and habitats, to stay warm as the earth cooled, and to continue theropod survival into present day.

There's a terrific journey through dinosaur history (specifically theropods) including fossil evidence of varied feather-like formations, shifts to smaller, lighter skeletal frames, even evolving hollow bones and hardened beaks with residual teeth and varying arm and claw structures that became wings of one sort or another. Comparisons of fossil-inspired bird-like dinosaurs (none that are pterodactyls) to present day bird species are described in visual contrast and with bite-sized informational text that will stay with readers and bring them back to share facts with others. That's a good thing, because the contents are both detailed and enticing to explore, compare, and then observe in real life. This is a don't-miss nonfiction book for anyone who has ever seen a bird. That would be you, right?

Roaring Brook Press, 2026

While putting titles on hold, or ordering purchases, consider an informational fiction book to pair with the first. THE DINOSAUR AND THE BIRD: A TALE OF PREHISTORIC FRIENDSHIP is written by Richard Ho and illustrated by Jamie Green. Ho's website will reveal the many other appealing books he's written, and Green's website will lead you through an interactive discovery of her own making. This imagined tale about a dinosaur who is not welcomed by others of its species but finds company with a long-billed bird friend. In a modern-day fable of unlikely friendships (think of the lion and the mouse) these tentative, unlikely friends allow a wish to come true-- a wish for a friend. (And yes, some versions of modern birds lived at the same era as the dinosaurs we commonly recognize as such.) 

If this sounds like the end of the story, it would be fiction without the "informational" descriptor. The vibrant and abstractly-rendered backgrounds for each scene offer informational content as well as Disney-like appeal. Then, on a single page turn, the two friends witness a fireball falling from the sky. It is distant. Not an immediate threat. But in a compressed timeline, these two live through the ecological changes that darkened the earth, shifted a previously friendly climate, and reduced available food. 

The actual consequences over years are presented within a few pages about their lives, revealing the efforts and comforts of feathered, flying devotion. Attempts to support a starving, dying friend are tenderly conveyed. The ending suggests both the science underway and the fable at work, with hope and promise. 

Both books contain a wealth of material to think about and discuss, while taking entirely different approaches to their subject matter. Together, they should be in classrooms, libraries, and homes. especially in the hands of anyone of any age who never outgrows a love of dinosaurs, or birds!

BOOKS UP THE MOUNTAIN: A Packhorse Librarian Story

 Let's hear it for LIBRARIANS! (Pause for applause.)

For LIBRARIANS PAST AND PRESENT! (More applause, please.)

For LIBRARIANS matching readers to the materials they want, need, and love! (ROAR of applause!)

(Pause to recover.)

WAXWING BOOKS, 2025

BOOKS UP THE MOUNTAIN: A PACKHORSE LIBRARIAN STORY
is the lyrically told account of an unnamed librarian tagged Book Woman. But Book Woman does not work from a library building. Or a bus. Or even on a road. 

Talented author Caroline Starr Rose brings concise and compelling prose that contributes a lyrical tone to this history. Illustrations by Gabrielle Grimard are slightly stylized but offer the natural colors, familiar figures, and subtle finishes of a landscape from earlier times. The visual narrative reveals the joyful transactions as well as the challenging struggles of Book Woman and her clients. In this case Book Woman represents the many women who took on this important role, had a limited range of printed items to circulate, and adhered to their mission despite serious challenges. 

On sprawling spreads of soft-edged landscapes across changing seasons, Book Woman follows her route through valleys and hollows, around mountain trails and ridges, knocking at doors and windows. Children and adults alike know her schedule and watch for her, welcoming pamphlets, series books, recipes, and news from far beyond their view. Brief but beautiful lines read descriptively but as poetically as a psalm:

"A cluster of clouds crowds the skies.

Streams surge. Waters rise."

Combined with images of gusting willow limbs and a shift of emotion on her face, those lines let readers feel the tension of being isolated far from home, committed to her mission but aware of impending storms. Along the way Book Woman keeps company with the ill and aging, offers suggestions and readings for the young ones, and notates requests, observing needs. On weekends, Book Women gather to exchange inventory, repair books, stitch bindings, and discuss the needs of their mountain readers. They were hired during the depths of The Great Depression and crippling unemployment by the Works Progress Administration to infuse modest income into families in Appalachia while uplifting literacy and community.

This well-researched, lovingly written, and entertaining picture book is a treasure at any time. In our present world, librarians are under siege while information and entertainment access is a click away for kids of any age. This story from history offers an engaging invitation to recognize the value of literature and its delivery. It provides a step back in time with a nod to the dramatic change in circumstances, slowing down the absorption of the story and its impact through the power of poetic pacing and phrasing combined with lush expanses of nature's best views.

If you aren't familiar with other books by Caroline Starr Rose, do yourself a favor and check out her award-winning middle grade titles, verse novels, and picture books.

Some prior posts featuring picture books about extraordinary efforts of  librarians are available HERE, HERE, and HERE, with a link to a PBS documentary on the packhorse librarians HERE.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST: Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty

You can take the teacher out of the classroom but you can't change September habits after a lifetime of sharing books with kids. At this time of year, my love of books leaves me pining to have a classroom of kids on a carpet with a stack of picture books at hand.

So, indulge me, please. 

Two titles that are not new but deserve to be in the spotlight are about structures that actually ARE spotlit around the clock. Most who know anything about the Statue of Liberty are aware that its scaffolding structure/underpinnings are the design and execution of French designer/architect, Gustav Eiffel, the force behind the Eiffel Tower.

CHRONICLE BOOKS, 2017

In fact, his ground-breaking approach to massive constructions using materials and designs that could withstand shuddering earth forces preceded that tower. So did the Statue of Liberty. I wrote about HER RIGHT FOOT in a prior post, HERE. (If you haven't read it, I hope you will. It has great relevance to our current immigration issues.)

It was these prior successes that convinced Eiffel that he MUST be the designer to win a contest seeking a globally-impressive centerpiece for the 1889 World's Fair in Paris. He intended to create a structure taller than any other in the world, one that visitors could enter and from which they could view breathtaking scenes of Paris and its surrounding countryside.

PICTURE WINDOW BOOKS, 2016
CAPSTONE 

Of course, he did win that assignment. The challenges he faced to actually have the structure built, in tie for the fair's opening, are described in THE EIFFEL TOWER: Gustav Eiffel's Spectaluar Idea, written by Sharon Katz Cooper and illustrated by Janna Bock. 

This is a nonfiction picture book that blends a slice-of-life period for Eiffel, not a full biography. Its focus is on the building/structure that is a global icon, one that has made the name EIFFEL so recognizable. It includes surprises like  the fact that it was intended to be disassembled after the  fair, but its life was extended for twenty years to allow Eiffel to fund part of the construction and pay himself back by admissions during those after-fair years. 

The building is well over a century old now and shows no sign of disappearing.

I found this while browsing library shelves on architecture and instantly recognized how appealing this library/school intended book really is. In a recent post ai wrote about the ways in which graphic/comics offer appeal and eager participation among capable readers who resist reading. 

Sharing these  two nonfiction picture books will spark readers to compare and contrast, to look closely at text and images, to discuss tone and voice and author's purpose. Many of the deep thinking processes that developing readers need to practice are encouraged by authentic text and fascinating content. Further research and focus are easily accessed through an abundance of resources ranging from expository text to video clips. Analyzing reliability of information presented as fact is another invaluable practice. These two iconic topics open up endless opportunities to evaluate sources and content about known entities. 

Give them both a look, and maybe you'll want to share them with readers you know, too.