Coraline
by Neil Gaiman

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Book Reviews of Coraline

Book Review: Down a dark hall
Summary: 5 Stars

Part "Alice In Wonderland" with a heaping helpful of Roald Dahl thrown in, the story follows our heroine, Coraline. She's just moved into a big house with her parents. The house is so large, in fact, that Coraline's family only occupies the middle level of the building. A slightly daft old man obsessed with mice lives on the top floor, and two ladies (once women of the stage) occupy the lower level. Coraline likes nothing better than to wander around the grounds of her new home, meeting the local stray cat, and viewing the old abandoned (and boarded up) well. One day she finds the day to be a dank drizzly one. There's nothing much to do inside, but a useless door in the parlor that leads only to a brick wall catches her eye. One day, when her parents are out, Coraline opens the door only to find that instead of a brick wall, there's a long dark hallway. And at the end of the hallways is a house exactly like her own. And there's her father and her mother...but different. For you see, this father and mother have buttons instead of eyes, and can promise to give Coraline everything she's ever wanted. In no time at all, it becomes very clear that Coraline is in direst peril, and that her very soul is being threatened.

This synopsis sort of hints at the dank disgusting things found in the story, but I'm unable to convey them properly. The millions of children that read this will identify with Coraline intrinsically. She's interested in things that are a little different. She wants to be original and apart, but her mother and father are only able to give her the things that all good parents try to give. Love, support, and a sense of stability. The book is especially excellent at drilling a couple moral lessons home (lessons that I suspect some adults should read and make note of). These include: 1. Being brave isn't just doing something courageous. It's doing something courageous when you're afraid and you don't want to do it. 2. Kids want a lot of stuff but not really. What kids really want are boundaries and limits, so that they know that their parents love them. There are other lessons as well, but these are the ones that stick out in my mind.

The best way of recommending the book to you is to show you the quote that begins it. It reads...

"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten", - G.K. Chesterton.

Please don't read this tale and assume the proverbial dragons in it are going to be interpreted by children as existing. Instead, understand that books like this prove to kids that their deepest nightmares and fears can be beaten if they just use their heads and act intelligently. "Coraline" is worthy of all praise I can give it. What other book has blurbs on its back from Diana Wynne Jones, Terry Pratchett, AND Lemony Snicket? Many children out there that are drawn to scary stories and frightening tales will love this story. For everyone else, they can just snuggle up with their "Princess Diaries" and avoid anything complicated or intellectually challenging. And a final word? This book will probably scare the pants off of anyone who reads it. It's just that good.

Summary of Coraline

The day after they moved in,
Coraline went exploring....

In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close.

The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.

Only it's different.

At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.

Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself.

Critically acclaimed and award-winning author Neil Gaiman will delight readers with his first novel for all ages.

What's on the other side of the door? A distorted-mirror world, containing presumably everything Coraline has ever dreamed of... people who pronounce her name correctly (not "Caroline"), delicious meals (not like her father's overblown "recipes"), an unusually pink and green bedroom (not like her dull one), and plenty of horrible (very un-boring) marvels, like a man made out of live rats. The creepiest part, however, is her mirrored parents, her "other mother" and her "other father"--people who look just like her own parents, but with big, shiny, black button eyes, paper-white skin... and a keen desire to keep her on their side of the door. To make creepy creepier, Coraline has been illustrated masterfully in scritchy, terrifying ink drawings by British mixed-media artist and Sandman cover illustrator Dave McKean. This delightful, funny, haunting, scary as heck, fairy-tale novel is about as fine as they come. Highly recommended. (Ages 11 and older) --Karin Snelson

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