Cybils book award winners named

The Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards (Cybils) are designed to honor children's books based both on popularity and literary merit, providing "a middle course between the lofty Newbery Medal and the populist Quill Awards," say the organizers. On February 14, the following Cybils winners for 2007 were named:

Fantasy and Science Fiction: The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex, published by Hyperion (elementary/middle grade) and Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale, published by Bloomsbury (young adult)
Fiction Picture Books: The Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County by Janice N. Harrington, illustrated by Shelley Jackson, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Graphic Novels: Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, illustrated by Giovanni Rigano and Paolo Lamanna, published by Hyperion (elementary/middle grade) and The Professor's Daughter by Joann Sfar, illustrated by Emmanuel Guibert, published by First Second (young adult)
Middle Grade Novels: A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban, published by Harcourt Children's Books
Nonfiction Middle Grade/Young Adult Books: Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood by Ibtisam Barakat, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Nonfiction Picture Books: Lightship by Brian Floca, published by Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books
Poetry: This Is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski, published by Houghton Mifflin
Young Adult Novels: Boy Toy by Barry Lyga, published by Houghton Mifflin

For further information and a list of short list titles in each category, visit the Cybils website.