CYBILS Top 5 Announced Today!!

I am very fortunate to have participated in the CYBILS award process this award season. Starting in September, the judges in each category started to read night and day to finish all of the recommended books or apps submitted. After months of frenzy but enjoyable reading, the Top 5 in each category have been released!

I participated as a judge for the Nonfiction: Middle Grade/Young Adult Category. Our Top 5 Books are listed below in no particular order:

1) Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin (Flash Point) 

2) Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan’s Rescue from War by Marsha Skrypuch    (Pajama Press)
3) Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip Hoose (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux)
4) Temple Grandin: How the Girl Whole Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World by Sy Montgomery (Houghton Books for Children)
5) Titanic: Voices from the Disaster by Deborah Hopkinson (Scholastic)

It was an honor to serve with my fellow panelists! Thanks again to Jessica, Louise, Karen and Justin for the great discussions and debate over these last few months. 

There are some great titles in all of the Top 5 categories! Taking a quick look today, I know I am going to be adding many books from the other lists! Be sure to check them out at CYBILS Blog’s Finalist Page! On my TBR list is now:

  

• Beswitched by Kate Saunders 
• Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews 
• The Theory of Everything by J.J. Johnson 
• Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein 
• The Curiosities: A Collection of Stories by Brenna Yovanoff, Tess Gratton and Maggie Stiefvater 
• The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate 

I bet there are others that I want to read but duty calls around my house. If any of these books are new to you, each picture is linked to it's Goodreads page. I will be sure to come back and look at the other categories more closely. Take a look at the lists and let me know which books you will be adding to your TBR list for 2013.