Happy New Year and Cybils

To my friends, family, readers, and book ninjas extraordinaire,

Wishing you a year filled with many Snoopy Dances of Joy!


Happy 2008!

I did my first official Snoopy Dance of Joy of 2008 on New Year's morning. My husband and I woke up early to check the Cybils website. (Cybils = Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards. Not to be confused with sybils, who are oracular seeresses from Ancient Greece.) We'd heard that the nominating committees were posting several lists of finalists on the morning of January 1st, including the list for my category, Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction.

My husband admitted later that he'd actually woken up earlier and had been lying in bed thinking, "I want to check. I don't want to check. I want to check. I don't want to check." (He is, in my humble opinion, the Cutest Husband Ever.) After an hour of this, Cute Husband woke me up and brought the laptop into bed. We scrolled through the site together. The YA Fantasy/SF finalists were listed first, and then the Middle Grade Fantasy/SF list...

THE CHAOS KING by Laura Ruby
INTO THE WILD by Sarah Beth Durst
THE LAND OF THE SILVER APPLES by Nancy Farmer
SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT by Derek Landy
THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY by Adam Rex

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! I'm a Cybils finalist!!! And wow, to be listed in such amazing company... I adore all these authors. It's just more than my little brain can handle... I'm thinking about tattooing this logo on my forehead:


On second thought, I think I'll pass on the tattoo. I'm not good around needles. Seriously, I once fainted when my cat got a shot. Worst part was that I knocked the cat off the counter in the process. The cat was fine, but the anecdote became the stuff of family legend, alongside many other embarrassing Sarah-moments. But I digress... This news totally, totally, totally made my day. Heck, it made my year so far! To the Cybils F/SF nominating committee, thank you so so so much.

And to everyone, hope you all had a fantastic New Year's and have a happy, healthy, and magical 2008!