Happy Valentine's Day, Silksinger!!!

Yay yay yay YAY!

Silksinger won the CYBIL* award for Middle-Grade Fantasy novel of the year! Yay!!!!! I love this award -- last year I served on the nominating committee for sci-fi and fantasy, which involved reading a LOT of books -- and this year I was crazy-gratified to see that both Silksinger and Lips Touch made the short lists in their respective categories. I was really hoping that one of them would win, and I have to admit it was really Silksinger I was rooting for the most, because Lips Touch has gotten a lot of [wonderful wonderful] love, and Silksinger really hasn't. Until now!!! And I LOVE this book.

The recognition of bloggers means a lot to me because these are my book-loving kindred spirits, my far-flung tribe out in the world. They don't get paid to do it, but they perform this amazing service of reading and reviewing books, getting the word out, and blogs are where I get ALL my book news. If it wasn't for blogs, I'd be in the DARK. How strange and isolated it must have been to be a writer in the dark days before the internet! And a reader, well, I remember how reading was once a solitary pursuit, but it isn't anymore. It's a community, and that is awesome.
So three cheers for the CYBILS, and for the judges, and for Silksinger!!!

You can see the full list of winners HERE. I'm happy to see a number of familiar books: The picture book winner, Red Sings From the Treetops, jumped off the shelf at me a few months ago at A Children's Place and insisted on coming home (and was subsequently a Caldecott Honor), and the nonfiction picture book winner, about the invention of Day-Glo paint, was on Bridget's coffee table when we went over to her house for dessert last week (she raved about it). I'll be looking into the Young Adult and Middle Grade winners, which I haven't read.

A brilliant Valentine's Day surprise. Yay! And it goes along very well with our Val Day plans, which are: to walk (though it seems to be raining) down the street for brunch at a cute nearby cafe, stopping en route at A Children's Place to buy Clementine a book or two. *happy sigh* I love buying books. I also love a big stack of books coming home from the library (psst, hey you, yeah, there's this amazing place where all the books are free!!!). Jim came home from errands yesterday with a tower of library books -- he said it felt like Christmas!

Maybe this is a good place to mention that Clementine has clear favorite picture books -- it's Jim who ends up reading to her more, since he has her in the morning (while I'm writing) and their first activity together after breakfast is book time (though I always get in a couple of books later in the day). She can get through maybe eight books in perfect happiness before she starts to fuss a little, and I don't mean board books, but regular picture books. And when she starts to fuss, Jim has only to whip out the secret weapon, her favorite book of all, and she lights up like a little sun and gets all excited to see it. It. Is. Awesome. The book?

All Kinds of Families by Mary Ann Hoberman, illus. by Marc Boutavant. Seriously. I keep meaning to video tape the change in her when she sees the cover of that book.

(Tone, if you're reading this, don't buy All Kinds of Families! There just might be a copy for Magnus sitting on my bench waiting for my lazy tush to find its way to the post office :-)

Have a happy book-filled Sunday, Valentiney or otherwise. Cheers!

*CYBIL = Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary award