Armchair Fail

So remember how I said I was arm-chairing the Cybils this year?

Yeah. About that.

I failed to do my research on what Cybils-nominated books my library owned prior to my last visit–and therefore spent 15 minutes on the “Express” internet-accessible computer frantically writing down author last names and the first few letters of the middle-grade fiction nominations. Then I spent the next half an hour or so running through the juvenile fiction stacks trying to locate the books. After eliminating from my list several dozen books that the library DIDN’T OWN, I finally arrived at one that it DID own.

I brought home Calvin Coconut: Dog Heaven (by Graham Salisbury) and read it right off.

Calvin is a third-grader (or maybe fourth grader?) who has been given a writing assignment–write an essay about something he wants so badly he can TASTE it, and try to convince Mr. Purdy that he should get it.

Calvin knows exactly what he wants–but the difficult thing isn’t convincing Mr. PURDY. It’s convincing his MOM that she should let him get a dog (even though their live-in helper might be allergic to dogs.)

I enjoyed this book, although I was a bit stunned by how young it seemed. The reading level and the plot are both even simpler than the Boxcar Children which I used to think were the simplest “real” chapter books imaginable. Obviously, I was wrong.

The other thing that I was wrong about was…whether Calvin Coconut: Dog Heaven was nominated for the Cybils.

I just took a look at the Cybils website and discovered that it was not Calvin Coconut: Dog Heaven but Calvin Coconut: Hero of Hawaii that had been nominated for the Cybils.

Yep, that’s right. Should have written down more than just the first couple of words of the title.

So, I have not managed to read any Cybils nominated titles since signing up for the challenge (although I did notice that Close to Famous, which I read and enjoyed a couple of months ago, is on the list of Middle Grade Cybils nominees.)

So there you have it. My Cybils Armchair fail.

What have I learned from the process? Figure out which Cybils nominees your library has and request them before your visit to avoid mix-ups.

If you want to read more Armchair Cybils posts (from readers who ostensibly actually read Cybils nominated books), check out Amy’s November link-up.

On a vaguely related note, I was so distracted by writing my Sunday School lesson and writing a Systematic Theology paper and working on a project for 2012 this weekend that I forgot to renew my library books. I got the overdue notice in my e-mail inbox this morning. Yeah, so at $0.35 per book per day for 3 days with over a hundred books… That’d make a great story problem for your kids, homeschool moms. For me? It’s my discretionary spending for the month. Budget fail!