This is my third year as an organizer for the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards (commonly known as the Cybils), and my first year as Literacy Evangelist. The Cybils are a series of book awards given in nine categories (Fiction Picture Books, Nonfiction Picture Books, Easy Readers, Middle Grade Fiction, Nonfiction: Middle Grade and Young Adult, Young Adult Fiction, Poetry, Graphic Novels, and Fantasy and Science Fiction). The Cybils were started by Anne Boles Levy and Kelly Herold, and now involve nearly 100 bloggers. The goal of the Cybils team is to highlight books that, in addition to being well-written, are kid-friendly and engaging.

The Cybils combine a democratic nomination process with a formal judging process. Anyone can nominate books, one title per person per category. Once the nominations are in, a teams of panelists reads all of the books, and comes up with short lists for each category. A second round of judging then takes place. The result is a winner for each category.

I believe that the Cybils have the potential to make a tremendous contribution to children’s literacy. Every year, thousands of new children’s books are published. While this variety is wonderful, the sheer magnitude of titles makes it difficult for parents and teachers, and even for librarians, to help kids choose books. And if we’re going to engage kids as readers, we have to offer them GREAT books. The books exist—but people don’t always have an easy way to find them. The Cybils, with their focus on literary quality and kid-appeal, give people a place to start. The long lists offer a smorgasbord of titles, handily grouped by age range and genre. They include everything from National Book Award nominees to self-published titles. This year, we have 841 eligible titles across the nine categories. Panelists are reading diligently to winnow this down to 50 or so short list titles by January 1st.

I believe that the Cybils short lists (5 to 7 titles per category) are an amazing resource. Great titles, vetted by people who, in many cases, read hundreds of children’s books each year. Books assessed with an eye to page-turner appeal, in addition to literary quality. I would like to see these short lists in the hands of parents, teachers, and librarians from around the world. My role in this year’s Cybils awards is to help spread the word about these awards beyond the circle of the bloggers and authors involved. That makes me a Literacy Evangelist. I’m a cheerleader for the Cybils, and for getting kids excited about reading. I’m the person jumping up and down (virtually, anyway) asking people to tell their friends and colleagues about the Cybils.

So far, this evangelism has been a success. Dozens and dozens of bloggers helped to spread the word about the Cybils nominations. People posted on discussion groups, and mentioned the Cybils in their newsletters, and asked their contacts outside of the immediate circle of children’s book blogs to do the same. People Twittered, made widgets, and started a Cybils group on Facebook. People offered to mention the Cybils at conferences, and passed out bookmarks. Far too many people helped for me to thank them all individually here, but I am grateful to everyone who has mentioned, and continues to mention, the Cybils. (We do have some media highlights on the Cybils blog, thanks to our Deputy Editor Sarah Stevenson.)

As a result of these efforts, despite the fact that the nominating period was shortened from six weeks to two weeks this year, we increased the number of nominations by nearly 50% (from 575 last year to 841 this year). And although I don’t have any formal statistics for this, I am certain that we received nominations from a more broad range of contributors. All of this is a testament to the power of grass root communication, by people who are passionate about children’s and young adult books. I’m planning a similar outreach campaign once the short lists are available, and I hope to get those lists into the hands of as many people as possible. Because that is what a Cybils Literacy Evangelist does—lets people know about pre-vetted, excellent children’s and young adult books, so that we together can help raise a new generation of readers. If you have suggestions, or you’d like to help, I would love to hear from you.

Posted by: Jen Robinson