The Cybils Poetry Award ~ by Christy Mihaly

 

The Cybils Awards for 2021 books are out! These awards for children's and YA works recognize books with "highest literary merit and popular appeal." That's a tough standard, and it's hard to choose just one winner. 

I should know--I was a Round 2 judge this year in the Poetry category. We were tasked with reviewing a diverse field of finalists, and each of these books was truly wonderful in its own way.  I recommend them all!

Aaaand: The Cybils poetry winner is: Everywhere Blue by Joanne Rossmassler Fritz.

Congratulations, Joanne! This middle grade book is a a lovely and lyrical novel in verse. Maddie, the appealing and earnest protagonist, comes from a musical family and the story uses engaging poems to weave together music, mystery (Maddie's brother goes missing), family dynamics, and love for Earth. 

The judges were particularly impressed with the author's sensitive and age-appropriate treatment of difficult topics, including mental health and environmental crises. Beautiful poetry and interwoven musical references make this a truly outstanding work. 

And for more virtuoso poetic works, check out the other finalists: 

Me (Moth), by Amber McBride is a YA fantasy verse novel about grief and loss. It's also a ghost story and a powerful tale of healing, with haunting language and gorgeous imagery, full of myth and music and metaphor, and with a stunning twist. This masterpiece of storytelling was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. 

This book made me cry! Newbery Honor winner Red, White, and Whole, by Rajani LaRocca, is a middle grade verse novel that deals with growing up and grief. Reha lives in two worlds: Indian (her parents are immigrants) and not (as she works to fit in, in middle school). When her mother becomes ill, Reha realizes what's most important, and finds her courage. Beautiful use of metaphor and poetic language.

Snow Birds, by Kirsten Hall, illustrated by Jenni Desmond, is a collection of lively poems celebrating the birds that spend the winter in snowy climes. The art is superb, and the book conveys plenty of interesting information about winter birds. A sampling of verse: 

Black Rosy-Finch

Hop! Stop! Hop! Stop! SO MUCH SNOW!

    Check! Peck! Check! Peck! COME ON, LET'S GO!

        Peep! Cheep! Peep! Cheep! WE WANT MORE!

            Till back they bounce through the barn house door. 

In You Don't Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves, Diana Whitney selected works by 68 poets including Amanda Gorman, Margaret Atwood, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Elizabeth Acevedo. The poems, exploring themes of loneliness and longing, seeking and sadness, shame and rage, speak to girls coming of age. Whitney says she wanted to collect voices she wished she'd heard when she was a teen. Here's an excerpt from a poem  by Elizabeth Spires, "Questions for Google": 

What does it mean and why does it matter?

How do I get from here to there? 

Where is the line that cannot be crossed? 

Why is the first time the best? 

Who will be coming and when will they get here? 

How long will it last before it is over? 

Who has the right and why do they have it? 

Who is the most important one?  

Starfish. Lisa Fipps has been garnering well-deserved praise (including a Printz Honor) for this powerful and beautifully written middle grade novel in verse. Ellie faces bullying (about her weight), and tries to live by the Fat Girl Rules. She finds friendship and acceptance, and through therapy finally feels ready to confront her badgering mother. Middle grade (and older) readers will respond enthusiastically to this much-needed title.

Call Me Athena, by Colby Cedar Smith, is an evocative YA historical novel in verse. It tells the story of a girl's coming of age in a Greek-French immigrant family in 1930s Detroit. Told in beautiful poetry with multiple voices and great historical details, this book impressed the judges with deep historical research and comprehensive back matter. 

If you haven't read these, don't wait -- get down to your library or bookstore and check them out. If you have -- what's your favorite? Are there other recent works of poetry you'd recommend? Please share in the comments. And thanks for supporting poetry for kids!

Meet Joanne Fritz, from bookselling to book making

    

Meet Joanne R. Fritz

by J.G. Annino

For a decade, Joanne Fritz cuddled at home

with the best children's books in the form of

advance reader copies (ARCs), before the

real deal ever popped into reader hands.

And she met the best children's authors in the

bookstore where she hand-sold their books.

She also read the best children's magazines,

such as those from the Highlights family of

publications.

Now, she is refining her writing for children, with

help from the best author-teachers we love to

read & study.

What were the best things about being a children’s bookseller?

Besides meeting all those amazing authors, I loved finding the right book for a child.                                                                                      

If the parent told me a few things about their kid and what they liked to read (or didn’t like to read!), 
I could always make several suggestions for books they would love. Parents and grandparents, 
as well as librarians, learned to look for my Staff Pick shelves or seek me out to ask for further recommendations.

By the time I left I had quite a few loyal customers who only wanted to deal with me, especially at the holidays.

Another favorite part of my job was recommending books for Indiebound. They used my blurb for 
Padma Venkatraman’s first novel (back when Indiebound was still called Booksense), hence it was 
fantastic to finally meet her at the Highlights Foundation workshop on Novels in Verse in 2016.

I also wrote children’s book reviews for a local newspaper that was distributed to all the area schools.

Now I review books on my blog, My Brain on Books.   

What were 5-8 titles, off the top of your head, that were guaranteed sellers in 

picture books, middle grade & YA?

It’s been a few years, so this may already seem outdated, but in PBs, Olivia was always popular, 
and any funny books about animals, really. The Pigeon books, Richard Scarry books, etc. 
Anything about trucks sold well, like Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site.  
We also sold a lot of classics like Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, and
 Caldecott winners too because they made nice gifts.

In MG, after Harry Potter died down, we sold anything by Rick Riordan and really anything in a series, 
but we also had plenty of customers buying stand-alone Newbery books and whatever our current 
Staff Picks were. And in YA, Hunger Games, Twilight, and similar books sold well back then, but so 
did YA contemporary, like anything by Sarah Dessen or Ellen Hopkins. Now, I think contemporary rules, 
but there will always be fans of fantasy and paranormal.

What are your favorite kinds of children's books? What did you read as a kid?

As a kid, I absolutely loved The Secret Garden, James and the Giant Peach, and Charlotte’s Web.

But I would read anything then, even comic books.

Reading was by far my favorite thing to do, besides climbing trees.

My favorite books remain MG, though now I lean more toward historical fiction and contemporary 
than fantasy, but I do try to read adult fiction occasionally (my favorite read in 2015 was 
All The Light We Cannot See). 
In general, I’m not big on nonfiction (I know I should read more).

Just give me a good story and I’m happy.

Did you write as a kid?

Yes, I did, starting at about the age of eight.

But for a long time I thought of it as a secret I needed to keep.

I didn’t tell my family or friends.

For many years after, I wrote secret stories and poems but never tried to write
a picture book until the birth of my first son.

I also didn’t write on a regular basis back then, only when I felt inspired.

I didn’t start writing novels until 2007, so I’m relatively new at that.

How did the shop prepare for author appearances?

It was a team effort.

The manager took care of ordering books for the signing, basing it on how many 
people we expected to attend. We advertised in the local paper, and more recently, online. 
The day of the signing, we’d set up chairs, a podium, and test the microphone a few hours in advance.

For the children’s authors, I frequently introduced the author myself.

The first time I had to do that I was extremely nervous, but everyone told me I did a great job.

From then on it was fairly easy. I still got nervous and weak-kneed, getting up in front of 50 or 
100 people and talking into the microphone, but I managed.

I also moderated Q&A sessions after the author’s speech, and helped keep the signing 
line moving along smoothly. After a signing, we usually asked the authors to sign stock for our shelves, 
so I got extra chances to talk to them.

Over the years, I was privileged enough to meet many distinguished children’s book authors, 
including but not limited to, Laurie Halse Anderson, Patricia MacLachlan, Richard Peck, 
T.A. Barron, Dan Gutman, Jerry Spinelli, Ellen Hopkins, Beth Kephart, A.S. King, and 
K.M. Walton (whose launch party for CRACKED was by far the biggest of any we had for a YA debut author.)

You undoubtedly have a deserved advantage in becoming a children's writer & author, due

to your bookshop background. Perhaps it's from seeing so many titles. 

Perhaps from meeting children's authors in the shop? And from hearing what young

readers in the shop, said? 

There were many advantages to working in a large children’s book department.

Probably the biggest advantage was having access to so many ARCs.

Since I was able to read (for free) as many current books as I could, I learned a lot about 
writing from that

(and I think any aspiring author should read as much as possible in their genre – if you don’t 
have access to ARCs, go to your local library!)

Restocking shelves helped me learn what books were flying off the shelves and what weren’t, 
so I learned what books were successful, at least in our area. I’m sure every bookstore is different.

As a bookseller, I devised a pitch for each book.

So when my customers asked for a recommendation I could pull out a few books and 
describe each one in an enticing way.

It’s a bit like hooking an agent or editor with the first few lines of your query.

Meeting authors is always wonderful, and some of them I’m proud to call friends now, 
but it really didn’t give me any advantages as a writer. Talking to my young customers h
elped me realize what they look for in a book (as opposed to what their parents look for). 
My customers were diverse and their tastes varied widely.

What one young reader liked, another wouldn’t.  

But they all knew a good cover can make a potential reader pick up a book, but if the first page 
doesn’t deliver, they’ll put it down again.

More about Joanne R. Fritz

Before you leave a note/comment for Joanne here, read some more about her:

A lifelong avid reader, Joanne majored in English at Dickinson College, intending to work in publishing. 
She spent a couple of years as an editorial assistant in New York City, before moving back to Pennsylvania 
and working first in a greeting card company and then in a school library. 
After a stint as a stay-at-home mom, Joanne re-entered the work force as a children’s bookseller in 2002 at Chester County Book & Music Company, in West Chester, PA. At one time, it was one of the largest independent bookstores in the country. It opened in 1982. The bookstore no longer exists, unfortunately, but there are still several indie bookstores within a reasonable driving distance of Joanne's home.  When the bookstore closed, she began writing full time. 

You can meet up with her at MY BRAIN ON BOOKS, her book review blog. 

  "Storm Magic," (above) a rebus by Joanne R. Fritz, was published in the October 2016 issue of Highlights.