Sunday, February 14, 2010

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

24 comments:

Charlotte said...

Yay for Silksinger! congratulations!

(and yay for books! for libraries! for babies reading books!)

Amber Lough said...

Yay Silksinger!!! I LOVE this book. I wish it'd been around when I was the target age, b/c I'd have obsessed over it a million times already. For now, reading it in late in life (ha ha) will have to do, until I can convince (my) Jim to FINALLY build that time machine. (He certainly is taking his time at it, isn't he?)

It's truly amazing you can get her to sit through so many books at once! And REAL books! Henry is into turning the pages now, and he tends to rip things, so we've been reading lots of board books.

Stephanie Perkins said...

YAAAAAAAY!!!!

YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!!!

I'm thrilled out of my mind that Silksinger was recognized as the AMAZING, FANTASTIC, WONDERFUL, EXCITING, PERFECT novel it is!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!!

HUGE HUGE HUGE ENORMOUS GIGANTIC HIMALAYAN-SIZED hugs and congratulations to you and Jim!!

Em said...

Congratulations, Laini! That is so exciting and well-deserved! :)

Lisa Nowak said...

Congratulations, Laini! What a wonderful Valentine's surprise!

Marianne said...

Yaaaaaaay! I love Silksinger, it has a very special place in my big old YA fiction loving heart because I knew it way back when it was a manuscript. I'm so glad it is getting the recognition it deserves - and you too.

Amber said...

As always, I am sooooo happy for you and your booky successes!

Happy, happy V day to all three of you.

;) ox

lkmadigan said...

Yay, Laini, I'm so thrilled for you!!!

The Cybils judges ROCK SO HARD.

:-)

Lisa

persnickety_jen said...

What a sweet valentine surprise! SILKSINGER was an amazing followup and the CYBILS judges always have such great taste!

And speaking of great taste, it looks like your daghter has it too! I've given away more than a few copies of All Kinds of Families to friends with babies. (That, and Neil Gaiman's Blueberry Girl!) :)

Victoria said...

woohoo! congrats that's wonderful news :)

Rosanne Parry said...

Congratulations Laini!! So happy to see Silksinger getting this recognition!

It's been getting plenty of love over at my house. So much that I haven't gotten a turn to read it yet. Unlike "that kissing book" which my girls refuse to read. :-)

Happy Valentines Day!

tone almhjell said...

Oh, huzzah, hooray, jubilations! I love love love Silksinger, and it's so great to see some of the love I know is out there stream into an award funnel for you. Congratulations!

And hooray for the book, too! I had already copied the name to paste into amazon's search box :)

Unknown said...

congrats! I LOVED silksinger!! It most definately deserves a lot of wonderful love, too.

Anonymous said...

We have to celebrate this! I am so happy for you and it is soooo past well deserved. Now it's time for the next one! I look forward to eventually having the collector's edition of all five one day. Magpie is one of the great characters in children's literature- as well as Batch naturally. And I need to know what Batch is up to these days so get busy!
(-this is from Alexandra dictated by Thinnychoochoo)

brettdl said...

My wife will tell you that I favored this book all along. It was my favorite read of the year.

anne said...

Hooray for SILKSINGER and the cybils!
I loved Jim's thought that the tower of library books was like Christmas! Hooray for libraries!

Anonymous said...

Yay fir Silksinger. It is such a great book. Yay for public libraries and the book store. Sounds like a wonderful day you had.

Myrna Foster said...

Those Cybils judges have excellent taste!

Sarah Stevenson said...

Huge congrats again! And I have to say, based on my nephews' attention span, eight picture books is truly excellent--clearly you already have a good reader on your hands with Clementine. :)

Anonymous said...

Congratulations!! What a great Valentine's Day!

Commander Kip said...

Yesss, this is awesome. *epic squeeface* I loved Silksinger to pieces!! (And Lips Touch too.) I still need to do a blog post on those.

Mrs. F-B's Books Blog said...

Great, great news! Congratulations!

~Erin

Jenilyn Collings said...

Congratulations! I LOVE Silksinger!!

Tinker said...

Woo-hoo!! Congratulations, Laini! I'm so happy for you!