This was my first year doing YA (speculative fiction, of course) and I honestly didn’t know how it would go. I’ve kind of suspected for a long time that I’ve got a middle grade reading sensibility, so was I going to be “cool” enough for the YA Crowd? But I had seemed to gravitate more toward YA this past year, and they needed help, so I thought I’d give it a try.

And it went really well. We had a great set of panelists, that — even when we disagreed with each other, we were able to have great discussions and talk about the books rather than just our reactions to them. It was lovely. And in the end, we came up with a shortlist that I (at least, though I suspect all of us) can be proud of.

Summer of Salt
Dread Nation
Tess of the Road
Pitch Dark
Not Even Bones
This Mortal Coil
Mirage

Go check out all of the other great shortlists at the Cybils website!