Last year I was a panelist on YA Fiction Cybil Awards. This year, I somehow ended up heading up the category. If you've managed to miss out on the Cybils both this year and last, it's an award that tries to find the irresistible balance of quality and appeal in children's and young adult literature from that year. It's run entirely by bloggers. Entirely. Both years were amazing experiences for me.

The winner was announced in February, but I'm still seeing traffic on my posts, and not too long ago someone asked if I saw any similarities between the books of 2007. Well, I can't say that all 123 of the YA Cybils nominated titles are represented here (let alone all the books published last year) - but I did have fun coming up with the list. If you know of any similarities I've forgotten - let me know in the comments! Full list of nominees here. Feel free to add on any YA titles in which you find weird, wacky or just plain coincidental events, themes or trends. They are always amusing!

2007 Similarities:
Fathers Obsessed with Model Railroads: Twisted, The Nature of Jade
Girls hit in the face with sports balls: 10 Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress, Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall
Comas/Knocked Unconscious: Heaven Looks a Lot like the Mall, Rubber Houses, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
Ucky Mothers: Heaven Looks a Lot like the Mall, Poison Apples, Such a Pretty Girl
Bad Dads: Twisted, The Nature of Jade, Such a Pretty Girl, Touching Snow
Abuse: Touching Snow, Billie Standish Was Here, Such a Pretty Girl, Lessons from a Dead Girl, Twisted
Novels In Verse: Heaven Looks a Lot like the Mall, Song of the Sparrow, Glass, Shark Girl, Walking on Glass, Rubber Houses
9/11 mentions: Does My Head Look Big in This?, Heaven Looks a Lot like the Mall, Someday this Pain Will Be Useful to You
Death: Saving Zoe, Rubber Houses, Deadline, Before I Die, Lessons from a Dead Girl, Cures for Heartbreak, A Swift Pure Cry, 13 Reasons Why
Voices from Beyond the Grave: Saving Zoe, 13 Reasons Why, Something Rotten, High Spirits, Wonders of the World, White Darkness
GBLTQ Friendly: Parrotfish, Freak Show, Off Season, Someday this Pain..., Split Screen, Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend, grl2grl, Cupcake, Evolution, Me and Other Freaks of Nature (mostly)
Historical: Tamar (1940s), Cassandra's Sister (1700s), Wednesday Wars (1960s), Song of the Sparrow (er...600s?), Red Moon at Sharpsburg (1860s), Enter Three Witches (1600s), Touching Snow (1980s), A Swift Pure Cry (1980s), Brothers, Boyfriends & Other Criminal Minds (1970s), Billie Standish Was Here (1960's), Tin Angel (1960s)
Sports: Zen and the Art of Faking It, Deadline, Slam, The Off Season, Boy Toy
Religion: In the Name of God, Converting Kate, Ethan Suspended, High Spirits, Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature
Books inspired by Great (British) Literature: Something Rotten (Hamlet), Enter Three Witches (Macbeth), Song of the Sparrow (Arthurian Legend), Cassandra's Sister (Jane Austen), Red Glass (The Little Prince, ok, fine that's French Lit. Whatever.)
Traveling: Carpe Diem, Girl at Sea, Red Glass, In Search of Mockingbird
Social Networking: Saving Zoe, Angels on Sunset Boulevard
Adults who Fail to protect kids in a Spectacular manner: Touching Snow, Such a Pretty Girl, Boy Toy
Second/Multiple Marriages: Poison Apples, Something Rotten, Touching Snow, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful..., Lemonade Mouth
Buddhist Rules: Cupcake, Zen and the Art of Faking It, Lemonade Mouth
Aloe Used, straight from the plant: Red Glass, Billie Standish Was Here
Coin Tosses: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, Lemonade Mouth
Pizza Parlor as Meeting Place: Lemonade Mouth, How to Get Suspended and Influence People
Multicultural: Finch Goes Wild, Red Glass, Lemonade Mouth, Don't Get it Twisted, Prime Choice, Revolution is Not a Dinner Party, Ethan Suspended
Lust-worthy boyfriends: Memoirs of a..., Tips on having a gay (ex) Boyfriend, Bloom
Too Cold for Me: The White Darkness, Peak
The "responsible" adult doesn't tell mom where he's taking the kid: The White Darkness, Peak
Younger Twin Sisters: The Poison Apples, Peak

Read last year's similarities at this link.

In the vein of bloggers coming together to do great things, check out next week’s Summer Blast Blog Tour. It's organized by Colleen Mondor at Chasing Ray and features a healthy handful of kidlit bloggers interviewing authors and illustrators over a swath of kidlit. It's the third time we've done this, and it never ceases to amaze me that authors and publicists actually respond to my queries to interview. I'm not in for as many as I've done in the past, but there are lots of fun and informative interviews to appear next week all over the kidlitosphere.

Gina Gagliano at First Second has been having bloggers, as I said on my own blog, "rebel with them against the sweet flower-filled month of May and post about a vampire books." She's posting links to the participants on the First Second blog, and it's been fun to find new blogs and new books. They are calling it Vampire Month, and if you haven't stumbled across it yet, now's your chance. There are also some great free graphics if you want to create an impromptu display on the theme. Or you could just save them until that one vamp book comes out this summer. Whatever it’s called. ;)

Last week we talked about why people read blogs. These little coordinated events? They create a society amidst the random wilds of the untamed internet. The kidlitosphere is not only a virtual civilization, but a community that I love being apart of. I've found genuine friends out here through participating in the efforts above. Friends that are just as real as the ones I know outside of my computer. Friends that when I finally meet them greet me with hugs and laughter. And that is what keeps me blogging.

If you wanted to know.

Posted by: Jackie Parker