Some of you know that I've been involved over the last several months with a new award called the Cybils: Children's and Ya Bloggers Literary Award. Basically, we're a group of over 80 bloggers who were dissatisfied with existing awards and decided to create our own.

Yesterday, we announced the winners in 8 categories:

http://dadtalk.typepad.com/cybils/2007/02/the_2006_cybils.html

The winner in the fantasy and science fiction category was Ptolemy's Gate, book 3 of The Bartimaeus Trilogy. If you haven't read this series, it's an amazing series. It's set in an alternate England where the government is run by magicians, but this is no Harry Potter. It's a class system: the magicians are the upper class and they rule on the backs of the commoner non-magicians who are the lower classes. Also, the magicians get their power from enslaved djinn.

Although January 1 is the official U.S. release date of Bartimaeus Trilogy Book 3, Ptolemy's Gate, I noticed that it is now available from Amazon.com! That means it's probably available elsewhere as well. What a great Christmas present! We're reading it now and will post a review soon. Here's a link to buy it on Amazon:

Hyperion Books for Children has posted chapter 1 of Ptolemy's Gate, Bartimaeus Trilogy Book 3, on their web site. You can read it here: