Gaiman, Neil. 2008. The Graveyard Book. Ill. by Dave McKean. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 9780060530938
The Characters
Nobody "Bod" Owens is the main character of The Graveyard Book. Other characters include his guardian, Silas, and the man who killed his famiiy, the man Jack Frost. There are other characters, but these are the most important ones.
The Plot
Nobody Owens is kind of a normal boy. When he was a baby, his parents and sibling were murdered and only he escaped. And to where did he escape? The graveyard. Taken in by ghosts, Nobody spends all his time in the graveyard until he discovers what happened to his parents and exact revenge.
The Setting
an English graveyard and the surrounding town
The Theme
belonging
The Style
The Graveyard Book is written in eight (very nearly) stand alone short stories.
The Strengths and Weaknesses
The creativity of this book is definitely a strength. Neil Gaiman never fails to surprise me in the oddities that he creates. The graveyard world that Bod lives in is beautifully described and imagined, but Gaiman's world's always are.
As far as weaknesses go, since this book is made up of short stories, I think I would have been content to begin at The Interlude and finish the book from there. I really didn't care for the beginning, like, I almost put it down and didn't pick it back up, but I trudged along and finally made it to something worthwhile. I just wish it didn't take 165 pages for me to get there.
The Review
Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2008 (Vol. 76, No. 16))
Wistful, witty, wise—and creepy. Gaiman's riff on Kipling's Mowgli stories never falters, from the truly spine-tingling opening, in which a toddler accidentally escapes his family's murderer, to the melancholy, life-affirming ending. Bod (short for Nobody) finds solace and safety with the inhabitants of the local graveyard, who grant him some of the privileges and powers of the dead—he can Fade and Dreamwalk, for instance, but still needs to eat and breathe. Episodic chapters tell miniature gems of stories (one has been nominated for a Locus Award) tracing Bod's growth from a spoiled boy who runs away with the ghouls to a young man for whom the metaphor of setting out into the world becomes achingly real. Childhood fears take solid shape in the nursery-rhymeûinspired villains, while heroism is its own, often bitter, reward. Closer in tone to American Gods than to Coraline, but permeated with Bod's innocence, this needs to be read by anyone who is or has ever been a child.
The Connection
I've had the (completely ridiculous) desire to make dioramas lately, and I think Neil Gaiman's books would be perfect to do that with. His books are so artistic and, well, macabre. Who wouldn't love making a miniature graveyard scene with ghosts all around from The Graveyard Book or a mom with creepy button eyes from Coraline? I think the teens in my library would!
The Review
Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2008 (Vol. 76, No. 16))
Wistful, witty, wise—and creepy. Gaiman's riff on Kipling's Mowgli stories never falters, from the truly spine-tingling opening, in which a toddler accidentally escapes his family's murderer, to the melancholy, life-affirming ending. Bod (short for Nobody) finds solace and safety with the inhabitants of the local graveyard, who grant him some of the privileges and powers of the dead—he can Fade and Dreamwalk, for instance, but still needs to eat and breathe. Episodic chapters tell miniature gems of stories (one has been nominated for a Locus Award) tracing Bod's growth from a spoiled boy who runs away with the ghouls to a young man for whom the metaphor of setting out into the world becomes achingly real. Childhood fears take solid shape in the nursery-rhymeûinspired villains, while heroism is its own, often bitter, reward. Closer in tone to American Gods than to Coraline, but permeated with Bod's innocence, this needs to be read by anyone who is or has ever been a child.
The Connection
I've had the (completely ridiculous) desire to make dioramas lately, and I think Neil Gaiman's books would be perfect to do that with. His books are so artistic and, well, macabre. Who wouldn't love making a miniature graveyard scene with ghosts all around from The Graveyard Book or a mom with creepy button eyes from Coraline? I think the teens in my library would!
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