The Cybils, a blogger-nominated award that honors the children’s and young adult authors and illustrators with the highest literary merit and popular appeal, announced their 2015 finalists.
Cybils divided the young adult category into three major nomination categories: fiction, speculative fiction, and non-fiction. YA graphic novels and YA novels written in verse are eligible, respectively, for the graphic novel list and the poetry lists.
The young adult fiction finalists – which encompasses all non-magical genres – are Courtney Summer’s All the Rage, Julie Murphy’s Dumplin’, Tamara Ireland Stone’s Every Last Word, Kekla Magoon’s How It Went Down, Elana K. Arnold’s Infandous, Susan Juby’s The Truth Commission and Nicola Yoon’s Everything, Everything.
The young adult speculative fiction finalists – which includes science-fiction, fantasy and their respective subgenres – are Leah Bobet’s An Inheritance of Ashes, Laura Ruby’s Bone Gap, Robin LaFevers’ Mortal Heart, Daniel José Older’s Shadowshaper, the anthology Slasher Girls & Monster Boys, Mark Alpert’s The Six and Nova Ren Suma’s The Walls Around Us.
Meg Wiviott’s Paper Hearts, a novel about the heart from Auschwitz, earned a spot on the Cybils poetry shortlist.
Maggie Thrash’s graphic novel memoir Honor Girl found a spot on the graphic novel shortlist, as did Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona and the first volume of G. Willow Wilson’s Ms. Marvel.
The young adult nonfiction finalists are Jacqueline Houtman’s Bayard Rustin: The Invisible Activist, Deborah Hopkinson’s Courage & Defiance: Stories of Spies, Saboteurs, and Survivors in World War II Denmark, Kathy Lowinger’s Give Me Wings: How a Choir of Former Slaves Took on the World, Martin Ganda’s I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives, Steve Sheinkin’s Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War, M.T. Anderson’s Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad, and Karen Blumenthal’s Tommy: The Gun That Changed America.
Books are nominated for the awards in October by readers in the book community. The winners are then handpicked by a group of judges in the book blogging community.
For more on the finalists, and to hear judges explain why they were nominated, visit the Cybils website.
