Tuesday Blurb: Books and Blogs and Cons, Oh My!

In the kidlitosphere, fall means fun … and lots of it! So let’s not waste time …

The Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards (Cybils) are coming! and we’re inviting you to join the party. Yesterday Cybils founder Anne Levy opened the call for judges for the 2011 Cybils. If you are a person who blogs about cildren’s and young adult books – and by extension loves to read – then please do think about applying to be a panelist for round 1 or round 2 of judging for this year. The deadline to apply as a panelist is Sept. 15, 2011.

You can find more details about being a panelist here.
If you’ve not been part of the process before, I heartily suggest getting your feet wet as a first-round panelist. Lots of reading, great discussions, and new blogging friends!
If you’ve participated before, then here’s the Cybils judge application form to make it easy for you.

There are a few new things this year. First, we’ve added a new Book App category. We are also piloting a program to read e-Books for the Science Fiction/Fantasy category. We’ll accept nominations for all books in the genre, but we’re also going to see how adding eBooks works. Exciting times, y’all!

Did you catch the “we”? Yep! Yours truly has taken the leap and is going to be the organizer for the Easy Reader and Early Chapter Book Category. This is the third year for the category created and championed by author, educator, literacy consultant Anastasia Suen. I have big shoes to fill!! This year I’m looking for eager readers … who can help create eager readers! So please do apply for our panel. Need inspiration? Jennifer has plenty in the the August I Can Read Carnival at Jean Little Library.

KidLitCon 2011 opens in Seattle, literally, right on the heels of the panelist process closing. There is still time to register … but not much. According to the blog, there are 100 people signed up! If you’ve not been, let me just say its two days of kidlit nirvana! Not to mention it’s Seattle. The last time I was there was September 15, 2000 … my 10th (!) wedding anniversary.

September 15 … it is a VERY good day! You don’t want to miss it!!