When the finalists for the Cybils awards were announced in January, I came up with a plan to read at least one finalist from each category before the winners were announced on Valentine's Day.  That's tomorrow!  So how did I do?

I commented on several of the Fiction Picture Book finalists in this post.  Since then, Milly and I have discovered The Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County.  Pruck!  We love it.

In Poetry, I read Good Masters! Sweet Ladies: Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz.  I loved it and made a prediction about it here.  Since then, I've also read Joyce Sidman's wonderful This is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness.  It's my pick for the Cybil.

I read two finalists in Middle Grade Fiction (one of my favorite genres of children's literature):  Miss Spitfire by Sarah Miller and Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree by Lauren Tarshis.  And I'm so glad I did.

I also read two finalists in Young Adult Fiction:  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt.

And two in Middle Grade/Young Adult Nonfiction:  Who Was First? Discovering the Americas by Russell Freedman and The Wall by Peter Sis.

I didn't read anything from the three remaining categories, though.  In my defense, I couldn't find the Nonfiction Picture Book  and Graphic Novel  I wanted to read at the library.  I'm guilty as charged for Science Fiction and Fantasy, though.  At least I know what I'm reading next!