Cybils Nominations and Reading Magic

It's time to nominate your favorite books of 2008. That's right, you have two weeks to submit your favorite 2008 titles to the Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards nominating panel. Here's the link CYBILS. Why is it important that the public nominate books? Because there are a lot of really good books we need to be reading! Democratic nominations allow for winners that might otherwise be overshadowed by books that receive more publicity.

This is the third annual Cybils awards and a new category has been added. It's the Easy Readers category organized by Anastasia Suen. What a great message to send to parents, and kids. (I suspect teachers and librarians already know how good easy readers can be.) Many easy readers are well executed and entertaining. They are considered a bridge between picture books and chapter books and a necessary part of developing literacy.

Today I went out to Linden Tree Books and got tickets to see Mem Fox talk about her newly updated and revised edition of Reading Magic, Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever. Following is a short excerpt from Reading Magic.

"Reading aloud to our sons and daughters also helps them to learn the best kinds of universal values, which will help them grow into being pleasant children now and good citizens later. It advances their speech, enlarges their brain, makes them happy, and helps them to be successful at school and in life. It also gives them sky-high self-esteem. They realize that we love them dearly."

I have high expectations for this presentation and I suspect I won't be disappointed.