Cybils Award Winners for 2010 (with a few comments)

The 2010 Cybils Award list was announced this morning. I wasn’t involved in the judging, unlike past years, because of a big writing deadline. But I’m pleased to see the judges liked some of the books that struck me over the past few months, whether or not I got around to writing about them. And I’m delighted to have the whole lists of winners and nominees to consider in the months and years ahead.

And the winners are…

Fiction Picture Books
Interrupting Chicken, by David Ezra Stein

Nonfiction Picture Books
The Extraordinary Life of Mark Twain (According to Susy), by Barbara Kerley

Easy Readers
We Are in a Book!, by Mo Willems

Short Chapter Books
Zapato Power: Freddie Ramos Takes Off, by Jacqueline Jules; illustrated by Miguel Benitez

Poetry
Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse, by Marilyn Singer, illustrated by Josée Masse
Nifty. Singer uses our familiarity with classic fairy tales to sum up some of those stories in “reversos,” free-verse poems that read the same whether from first line to last, or last line to first. As a bonus, the reversos usually provide a new perspective on the tales: from a different character, or a different point in time. Masse’s illustrations expand on the themes of mirroring and symmetry.

Graphic Novels
Meanwhile: Pick Any Path. 3856 Story Possibilities, by Jason Shiga
I wrote about Shiga as a “math cartoonist” back here, and about the possibilities of branching paths in traditional comics here. Meanwhile has gotten most of its attention for its algorithmic structure. However, the crazy scientific devices that the hero encounters also leave readers with interesting logical questions. For example, if you have a machine that wipes everything out of existence, can you ever experience having pushed that button?

Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Shadows: The Books of Elsewhere, Vol. 1, by Jacqueline West

Middle Grade Fiction
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, by Tom Angleberger
I admire any author who can find fun in middle school. Another interesting aspect of this novel is the notion, raised by some readers, that one crucial character has Asperger’s syndrome. The past decade has brought a number of fine books touching on that condition, some with “Aspie” protagonists figuring out the world and others with protagonists living with “Aspie” relatives. Here the character, if indeed he qualifies, is simply one of many quirky kids in the quirky middle-school culture.

Young Adult Non-fiction
The Secret of the Yellow Death: A True Story of Medical Sleuthing, by Suzanne Jurmain

Young Adult Graphic Novels
Yummy; The Last Days of a Southside Shorty, by G. Neri, illustrated by Randy DuBurke
My still-somewhat-in-shock review here, and remarks on how Randy DuBurke worked with his collaborators here.

Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction

Rot & Ruin, by Jonathan Maberry

Young Adult Fiction
Split, by Swati Avasthi

Comics That Go Both Ways

I’d like to find a comics page spread that starts with two characters talking in the upper left, then separating. The reader can follow one character across the spread and then down to the lower right, or follow the other down the page and across to the lower right.

Either way, each character has an individual experience before rejoining the other, and only the reader knows what’s happened to both. It’s quite possible Chris Ware has done something like this already, and I just haven’t had the eyesight and patience to enjoy it. If I can’t find an example, I may have to write one.

While waiting, I keep my eyes open for comics pages that play with our idea of panel order. There’s one in Chris Giarrusso’s new G-Man: Learning to Fly collection, which you can find by going to his “Comic Bits” page and selecting strip 28.

A more algorithmic approach to the same issue appears on Jason Shiga’s “April Fooled” poster, originally created for Nickelodeon magazine.

And Sunday Press has collected Gustave Verbeek’s Upside-Downs of Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo comics from 1903-05. Each illustration serves its story twice, once when viewed right-side-up and differently when viewed upside-down. I saw a selection of these Sunday strips in Art Out of Time (reviewed here), and, while I don’t think the concept ever got past the novelty stage, I’m still amazed Verbeek was able to keep up the gimmick as long as he did.

Fleep Fleep

A long while back, Publishers Weekly ran a rather extraordinary interview with Jason Shiga, library employee and cartoonist. His most recent milestone then seemed to be an Ignatz nomination for Bookhunter, a "library crime procedural."

Shiga told the magazine:

I get pegged as the math cartoonist, but to be honest, I don’t think there’s anything in Fleep that someone who’s passed all their math courses in high school couldn’t figure out. Certainly nothing past freshman calculus anyway. Maybe a little group theory and combinatorial analysis. But mostly my comics are just extremely rigorous and analytical. Also, there’s a little graph theory in my last two comics.

You know, Mr. Shiga--I think that makes you a math cartoonist.

Shiga's Fleep is an episodic comic about a fellow trapped inside a phone booth, applying logic to each decision point--without, however, getting any closer to the outside.

Shiga also has comics whose narratives are variable, based on reader choices. He told PW:

I’ve always loved Choose Your Own Adventure books since I was a child. I think part of the allure of the genre is that as a child, you don’t get to make any choices in your life. As an adult, however, one aspect I really love is the idea of collaborating on a story with the writer. I like to use my imagination when I’m reading and I’ve noticed that seems to be the direction a lot of narrative is heading. . . .

I only sell [those comics] at conventions. They’re basically too heavy, and I get killed in the shipping. Hello World is the world’s first programmable comic. The story centers around a mother who gets to pack items into her children’s lunchboxes. The children pull out the items that can cause other items to go in or remaining items to get switched around in various ways. So essentially, the comic works as a very basic three-line stack program.

Okay, remember what I was saying about "math cartoonist"?

Knock Knock is another choose your own adventure comic except instead of two or three choices, the reader gets to choose from over a dozen choices at each node. The only thing is, after the reader makes three choices, a crazed gunman bursts through the door and shoots you. There are over 250 ways to die and only one way to survive. The reader must in his three moves pick up enough clues about his identity, the identity of the killer and why he wants to kill him to formulate some sort of survival strategy.

Figuring out the reasoning of a "crazed killer." Perhaps there are some things beyond logical analysis.