The CYBILS are judged by book bloggers. They have a really extensive process; this article is really interesting. The finalists were announced January 1st, so that was a pretty awesome way to start the new year! The winner in each category will be announced February 14th.

First, it was named a Bookstagang Best Book of the Year! Bookstagang is a big group of picture book reviewers on Instagram. The judges read basically all of the children’s books for the year, so it’s a big honor!

On the same day, COPY THAT, COPY CAT appeared on Betsy Bird’s Great Board Books list! She’s a big time librarian blogger who does a series of best of the year lists—one for each day of December. I’ve read her blog for a long time, so I was very excited to discover Copy Cat there on the first day! (I may have squealed a bit.) And then I was shocked to find it on the second day’s list too, for Picture Book Readalouds!

Here’s Betsy’s review:

Given all that, I decided to google myself and discovered COPY CAT on a holiday gift guide by Reading Rockets! So that capped off a very exciting two days!

It’s a little funny that COPY THAT, COPY CAT is on so many board book lists. It’s technically a board book in form, but not in content. Real board books are shorter and designed for babies or toddlers. COPY CAT is a 32-page picture book designed for ages 4-8. It just happens to have thicker pages because of the die-cuts and flaps. It is sturdy enough for toddlers though, and we tried to make it work for a wide range of ages. It’s pretty cool that it’s getting recognition, since it would have been easy for it to fall between the cracks!