Friday, January 06, 2017

Cybils Poetry Shortlist 2016

Happy new year, everyone! 

Time to celebrate the best of the poetry published in 2016. I'll be looking for announcements of all the awards and posting information about any poetry books that are recognized as it becomes available. I'm hoping there will be many poetry books recognized in all kinds of ways because there were many, wonderful poetry books published in 2016. Just look...

FIRST, I was lucky enough to serve as a judge for the Cybils Award in Poetry and we are proud of our "shortlist" too. Here are our choices:







Here is the annotated list of these titles at the Cybils site. You can find the list of ALL the nominated books here. The winner will be announced on Valentine's Day!

Thanks to my fellow Round 1 Judges who were a lovely, thoughtful group. Be sure and check out each of their excellent blogs:

Jone MacCulloch, Chair, Check It Out 
Carol Wilcox, Carol’s Corner
Joy Acey, Poetry for Kids Joy 
Linda Baie, Teacher Dance 
Tricia Stohr-Hunt, Miss Rumphius Effect 
Kortney Garrison, One Deep Drawer

The Nerdy Book Club also announced their choices for the 2016 "Nerdies" for Poetry and Novels in Verse posted by Mary Lee Hahn here. Their list includes:

A Poem for Peter by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Booked by Kwame Alexander
Moo by Sharon Creech
Applesauce Weather by Helen Frost
Echo Echo: Reverso Poems about Greek Myths by Marilyn Singer
Wet Cement: A Mix of Concrete Poems by Bob Raczka
Finding Wonders: Three Girls Who Changed Science by Jeannine Atkins
Before Morning by Joyce Sidman
When Green Becomes Tomatoes by Julie Fogliano
Saving Red by Sonya Sones
The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary by Laura Shovan
Garvey's Choice by Nikki Grimes
To Stay Alive by Skila Brown
You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen by Carole Boston Weatherford
American Ace by Marilyn Nelson
Freedom in Congo Square by Carole Boston Weatherford (TWO for Carole!)
Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan
Lion Island: Cuba's Warrior of Words by Margarita Engle

The ALA Midwinter conference is coming up in two weeks and I'm hoping there will be poetry books among their choices too. And I'll be posting my "sneak peek" list for forthcoming poetry set to be published in 2017 very soon. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, head on over to Linda's place (my fellow Cybils Poetry Judge) at Teacher Dance for our Poetry Friday postings. 

13 comments:

Brenda at FriendlyFairyTales said...

Fabulous choices. Lots of terrific books, some on both lists. Glad to see Poetry Friday people so honored.

Kortney Garrison said...

Love all the Cybils covers together! Really such a strong group of titles. Thanks for sharing this journey with us!

Kay said...

Thank you for sharing these titles. It looks like I have lots of good poetry titles awaiting me.

Keri said...

I've bookmarked this post to reference next time I'm at the library!

Jeannine Atkins said...

Thanks for all your good work making sure we have great reading choices!

Linda B said...

Your lists always help spread the word so beautifully, Sylvia. I'm glad the Nerdies included more of the wonderful poetry published last year. It is an exciting list, too. I liked working with you for the Cybil's Round One, and while it kept me so busy, I'm happy that I got to read so many. There are two I have not read on the Nerdies, Saving Read and A Poem for Peter, which I have, but have not read yet. Soon. Thanks for all!

Mrs. Wyman said...

A wonderful "Must Read" list. Thank you for all your work! Excited to share with my students...and myself! :-)

Carol said...

Really fun to read with all of you these past couple of months! That's one of my favorite things about the CYBILS. I've added CONGO SQUARE and RED to my library list. I just commented to Jone that I'm having trouble figuring out what to read now that I don't have that huge CYBILS stack on my coffee table!

Liz Steinglass said...

What wonderful lists! Thank you for sharing them.

Maria Gianferrari said...

I am thrilled to see so many of my own favorites here, Sylvia, especially Finding Wonders, The Last 5th Grade & When Green Becomes Tomatoes!!

I also loved Before Morning, To Stay Alive & Wet Cement.

I've read all of the Cybils finalists (except Booked--must get on that!!)

And for the Nerdies,I've read the majority of the titles, with the exception of Booked, Moo, American Ace, Lion Island & Saving Red. Sones verse novels, What My Mother Doesn't Know & What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know are two of my all-time favorites :)

Sylvia Vardell said...

Hey, thank you all for stopping by and celebrating the Cybils and Nerdies with me! More to come.

Irene Latham said...

Thank you, Sylvia, for sharing this poetry-love! I am very excited to read your 2017 list of poetry books. I print it out every year so I can keep up to date with requests at my fabulous library. xo

BJ Lee said...

Thanks for sharing these lists, Sylvia! So many to add to my reading list!