Coraline
by Neil Gaiman
List Price:
Our Price: $7.69
You Save: $10.31 (57%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $7.29 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Neil GaimanReader: Neil Gaiman
Edition: Audio Cassette
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2002-06-01
ISBN: N/A
Publisher: HarperChildrensAudio
Book Reviews of Coraline
Book Review: The other side of the door
Summary: 5 Stars
Old English houses must be the most interesting in the world, full of nooks, mirrors, wardrobes, and mysterious doors. While exploring her new home, young Coraline discovers a door that goes nowhere, bricked up when the house was subdivided into flats. A bit bored this summer, one day out of curiosity she unlocks it, only to find that the bricks are gone and a dark passageway beckons. Naturally, she follows it to the other world, which resembles the one she just left. In this house are Coraline's other mother and other father, and for while, she is delighted. A sense of menace looms and grows, however, and soon Coraline realizes that she has walked into a deadly trap. Her own fate, as well as the fates of her real parents and some people she hasn't ever met, have become the objects of nefarious game that Coraline must win at all costs.
Neil Gaiman is a gifted author following the traditions of the great English fantasy writers, adding his own creative genius to the genre. He is the only author I have encountered who can read his own work with the verve of a professional narrator. From the very first page, the reader is drawn into Coraline's world, and willingly follows her from the real to the imaginary. Gaiman is one of the few contemporary writers who does not have to resort to outlandish settings or contrived plot devices; the transition from one world to the next is seamless and credible. And nary a vampire to be seen.
Summary of Coraline
The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring....In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one window 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. 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 if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself.
Performed by Neil Gaiman
With original music by The Gothic Archies
Coraline lives with her preoccupied parents in part of a huge old house--a house so huge that other people live in it, too... round, old former actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and their aging Highland terriers ("We trod the boards, luvvy") and the mustachioed old man under the roof ("'The reason you cannot see the mouse circus,' said the man upstairs, 'is that the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed.'") Coraline contents herself for weeks with exploring the vast garden and grounds. But with a little rain she becomes bored--so bored that she begins to count everything blue (153), the windows (21), and the doors (14). And it is the 14th door that--sometimes blocked with a wall of bricks--opens up for Coraline into an entirely alternate universe. Now, if you're thinking fondly of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, you're on the wrong track. Neil Gaiman's Coraline is far darker, far stranger, playing on our deepest fears. And, like Roald Dahl's work, it is delicious.
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
Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Magic Books
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Leon and the Spitting Imageby Allen Kurzweil
Greenwillow Books; Published: 2005-05-10; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $32.21
The Magician's Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia)by C. S. Lewis
HarperCollins; Published: 2005-05-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.00
Price in other shops:
The Last Battle (Narnia)by C. S. Lewis
HarperCollins; Published: 2005-05-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.49
Price in other shops:
The Fairies of Nutfolk Woodby Barb Bentler Ullman
Katherine Tegen Books; Published: 2006-05-23; Library Binding; Book
Best price: $14.60
Price in other shops:
Charlie and the Chocolate Factoryby Roald Dahl
HarperFestival; Published: 2002-10-22; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $22.29
Price in other shops:
The Horse and His Boy (Narnia)by C. S. Lewis
HarperFestival; Published: 2002-11-26; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $3.22
Price in other shops:
Open Me...I'm a Dogby Art Spiegelman
HarperCollins Children's Books; Published: 1997-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $271.87
Ella Enchanted (Newbery Honor Book)by Gail Carson Levine
HarperCollins; Published: 1997-04-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.72
Price in other shops:
Only You Can Save Mankind (Johnny Maxwell Trilogy)by Terry Pratchett
HarperCollins; Published: 2006-07-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.42
Price in other shops:
The Graveyard Bookby Neil Gaiman
Harper Collins Publishers; HarperCollins; Published: 2008-09-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.91
Price in other shops: