It's fitting that our final review of the finalist period would come from a loyal and hardworking Cybils regular–Charlotte Taylor, who blogs about children's and YA fantasy and sci-fi at Charlotte's Library. She was a round 1 judge this year for MG Fantasy and Sci-Fi, and one of the most fun aspects of her blog is that every Sunday, she does a roundup of MG SFF reviews from around the kidlitosphere. Fun fact: Charlotte is an archaeologist. How cool is that?
This past spring, she reviewed Cybils MG SFF finalist The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen and called it her favorite of the year to date. It's also made it onto a lot of our judges' personal fave lists. It's a novel of political intrigue, sort of a non-magical fantasy, though it promises plenty of action and adventure. In her review, Charlotte said:
Sage, a mischievous, conniving, intelligent thief/orphan boy, tells the
story from a beautifully unreliable first person point of view.
There's a huge emotionally charged story embedded in this unreliable
narration…
Read the full review here.