Friday, January 03, 2020

Cybils 2019 Poetry Finalists

It's a new year and time to celebrate lists of best books, favorite books, and just-plain-awesome books for young people. I love participating in the Cybils award, in particular, because they focus on POETRY specifically and because it gives me an opportunity to dialogue about poetry with other bloggers and lovers of poetry! This year, I served as a judge for the poetry finalists and we were charged with winnowing the wonderful field of poetry for young people published last year down to SEVEN books. Not easy, but fun to read, reread, and discuss. You can see the list of ALL the nominated poetry titles here. But here are the SEVEN finalists we chose collectively. The final ONE winner will be announced on Feb. 14. Stay tuned. 

Cybils Poetry Finalists

Dreams from Many Rivers: A Hispanic History of the United States Told in Poems
by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Beatriz Gutierrez Hernandez
Henry Holt

Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience 
Edited by Patrice Vecchione and Alyssa Raymond
Triangle Square

Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir 
by Nikki Grimes
Wordsong

Other Words for Home
by Jasmine Warga
Balzer + Bray

SHOUT
by Laurie Halse Anderson
Viking Books for Young Readers

Soccerverse: Poems about Soccer
by Elizabeth Steinglass, illustrated by Edson Ike
Wordsong

The Proper Way to Meet a Hedgehog and Other How-To Poems 
by Paul B. Janeczko, illustrated by Richard Jones
Candlewick Press

My fantastic fellow judges for the Cybils Poetry Finalists:
Anastasia Suen, #kidlit Book of the Day
Ellen Zschunke, On the Shelf 4 Kids
Tricia Stohr-Hunt, The Miss Rumphius Effect
Matt Esenwine, Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme
Margaret Simon, Reflections on the Teche

And don't miss ALL the wonderful poetry published in 2019! There were so many other fantastic works to read and share. Revisit my 2019 list of poetry here.

Now head on over to Carol's Corner for more Poetry Friday love!
Happy new year, y'all. My "sneak peek" list of forthcoming 2020 poetry titles should be up next week! 

5 comments:

  1. I've been there & know you all worked so hard to choose, not an easy thing. It's a marvelous group of books, making the next choosing even harder! Thanks for your work, Sylvia!

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  2. Beautiful selection. Thank you for sharing!

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  3. A couple more left to read! Thanks for posting!

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  4. Good luck to the final round judges! How could you EVER pick a single winner from that collection!

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  5. Thanks for sharing this rich collection (original and finalists) of poetry books. What a difficult task to select just one–good luck!

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