Now that the Cybils finalists have been announced, we'll be doing our best to feature reviews of those titles so you can get to know them a bit better–and so that we can continue to give props to our excellent team of blogging panelists. (Never fear; no decision-making spoilers here–we're only posting reviews that were written before the judging period!) One of those hardworking panelists was Em of Em's Bookshelf, who helped narrow down the Fantasy and Sci-Fi shortlist.
Among Em's posts during the reading period was a review of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, a finalist in the Fantasy and Sci-Fi category for Elementary/Middle Grade readers. The book's protagonist, Bod, is a typically one-of-a-kind Gaiman character–for one thing, he lives in a graveyard. For another, his best friends are ghosts. In her review, Em discusses the vividness of Gaiman's storytelling:
This is the first book that I've read by Gaiman and, after the first couple of pages, I knew that I was in the hands of a master storyteller. The graveyard where Bod lives came alive for me.
Click here for the full review.