The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
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Book Reviews of The Graveyard Book
Book Review: Heartrending and Amazing Coming of Age Tale
Summary: 5 Stars
Having grown up on Walt Disney's "The Jungle Book" and reading the Kipling original later as a child I immeadiately knew what to expect in Neil Gaiman's latest youth-focused release. I don't say "children's book" because Gaiman's work is really so superb that it can be easily appreciated by almost any demographic. (except maybe children under six to seven years of age or so) What I expected is a coming of age story fraught with peril and exploration and I wasn't disappointed.
Gaiman has a knack for developing macabre settings and characters without reveling in depression and hopelessness. His tale begins with grisly demise of Bod's (the protagonist) parents. Some parents may find this disturbing, but Kipling penned similar passages and Disney has killed many a parental figure in it's long tenure as reigning childhood entertainment machine. He also creates an almost loveable (almost) vampire, a community of ghosts that embody (no pun intended) the tagline "it takes a graveyard to raise a child," and a witch that will probably have parents smiling to themselves as their children share Bod's innocent bafflement.
All these characters can only barely compete with the enchanting graveyard setting. It seems like it would be a cramped place to live, but like growing up in our family home there is always some trouble to get into and that holds true for Bod and his moldy graveyard. With passages that lead into ghoulish other worlds and the crypt of a very interesting guardian there are plenty of opportunities for Gaiman to foster curiousity and even light terror in his readers.
This is a fantastic work of short fiction that should be read by anyone who enjoys a good coming of age story. Be warned that the ending is appropriately heartbreaking. (the ending of the Jungle Book was not nearly as effective) However, it's the kind of ending that hurts adults so much more than children. I will even venture that if there are any damp eyes after the book is closed they will be your own.
Book Review: A Nod to Bod
Summary: 5 Stars
While my kids were browsing in the children's section of our local bookstore, I picked up this book and began to read it. Wow! I hadn't planned on purchasing myself a children's book, but I was immediately sucked into this one and had to bring it home. This novel will likely be too much for some children. It begins with a heinous trauma, the vicious knife slaying of the protagonist's family. The crime is not related in gory detail, but the horror of the event is nonetheless evident. One member of the family, a toddler baby who is blissfully unaware of the carnage, survives because he is a night wanderer and has climbed out of his crib and toddled off into an old cemetery up the road from his house. There, he is taken in by the cemetery denizens after an appearance by the confused "new" ghosts of his parents, particularly his distraught mother, who lets the resident ghosts of the cemetery know that the child is being hunted by Jack, the murderer of his family. The baby is renamed Nobody Owens, called Bod for short, and the rest of the novel tells of his coming of age and eventual revenge on his family's killer.
Bod learns many lessons from the ghosts in the cemetery; from his guardian, Silas (a vampire?); from Miss Lupescu, a werewolf; and from living people, most notably Scarlett, a girl of his age who befriends him when he is about 5 and then again in his early teens. When Bod demonstrates that he has learned enough and matured enough to fend for himself outside the cemetery, he must leave it, and this leaving will be permanent. I found this part very saddening, and I imagine that some young readers will be upset by it.
The premise of this novel is based on Kipling's The Jungle Book, which is updated in a wonderfully creepy way here. Bod is an interesting character, and the ghosts and other creatures he meets are compelling. I highly recommend this memorable novel to adults and children who are mature enough not to get bad dreams from it. Long live Bod!
Book Review: A Macabre Delight
Summary: 5 Stars
I became curious about The Graveyard Book when I first read about the plot. The notion of a boy reared by ghosts made me wonder how the story would be developed and I must say that Neil Gaiman created as memorable a story as I could have hoped.
Not to spoil the novel for those who have not read it, the story is about a boy whose family is killed by a professional hit man but the toddler of the house (an inventive little boy) has escaped him and gone wandering outside, ending up at a graveyard. The ghosts take charge of him and the story follows Bod Owens as he grows up with his unusual parents and guardian. Mr. Gaiman enlivens his tale by giving us some unusual creatures, such as ghouls and strange winged Night-gaunts. There is the unforgettable chapter where Bod encounters the witch Lisa Hempstock and his efforts to get her a headstone. Best of all, he makes the graveyard and its permanent residents into a real place with complicated and interesting characters. Mr. Gaiman is a great observer and nicely contrasts the worlds of the living and the dead.
The book has a wonderful cadence and flow with marvelous descriptions. A brief example:
"One grave in every graveyard belongs to the ghouls. Wander any graveyard long enough and you will find it - waterstained and bulging, with cracks or broken stone, scraggly grass or rank weeds about it, and a feeling when you reach it, of abandonment. It may be colder that the other gravestones, too, and the name on the stone is all too often impossible to read. If there is a statue on the grave it will be headless or so scabbed with fungus and lichens as to look like a fungus itself."
I looked forward to spending some quiet time reading The Graveyard Book each day, and I agree with the comment by Laurell K. Hamilton (on the jacket) that the reader is left wanting for more. This is probably not a book for young children but readers from intermediate on up will find it a rewarding read.
Book Review: A new classic for older children
Summary: 5 Stars
Neil Gaiman ("Coraline") has created a modern children's classic with "The Graveyard Book." Gaiman credits Rudyard Kipling's beloved "Jungle Book" stories as his inspiration, and while one can see the parallels, Gaiman's work is darker stuff and should be saved for the older kids.
I am far from a prude, but there are lots of younger kids who delight in Kipling's "Riki Tiki Tavi" who will be scared sleepless by the first chapter of "The Graveyard Book." The Man Jack, a knife-bearing monster, murders three seemingly innocent people and hunts for his final victim, an eighteen-month-old boy. The boy innocently toddles away into the night and ends up in the titular graveyard, where the resident ghosts hear the tormented pleas of the murdered family and agree to give the boy sanctuary.
This is dark, scary stuff. Gaiman does not overdo the blood and gore, but he doesn't need to: the man Jack is the stuff of nightmares.
The boy is adopted by two ghosts, the Owens, who name him Nobody. Given the Freedom of the Graveyard, Nobody, or "Bod," can explore this bizarre world of ghosts, ghouls, and werewolves in complete safety. His cold, distant guardian, Silas, may or may not be a vampire (Gaiman implies a lot in this book, which is one of its charms), but he keeps Bod in food and books. Bod gets a fairly comprehensive education in the ways of the world, but the most important lessons are the ones he learns when he steps beyond the boundaries and protections of the graveyard. Whether it be ghouls taking him to Hell or a couple of grammar-school bullies, Bod meets villains who force him to confront his limitations and to fight for himself.
A sometimes dark, sometimes sad, but always-entertaining book of growing up, "The Graveyard Book" is a welcome antidote to anyone who suspected that J.K. Rowling had dominated the fantasy-coming-of-age genre for too long. Just be careful - this is a book for children, but not all children.
Book Review: life lessons from the non-living
Summary: 5 Stars
Reading works of Neil Gaiman, I've come to notice several intricacies in his writing that are admirable. The first of which is that he seems to resist well the temptation to write any sequels to his works (other than the Sandman, of course). Yes, some of his characters occasionally recur in his short works of fiction from time to time, but merely as a distant flash or strike of lightning. Some books are best when they stand alone.
A second observation could be that Gaiman's knack for a good story hinges largely on how much he can keep you guessing, in the dark, as it were, for more detail about his characters and settings. As his stories unfold, there is always left a nagging sense of wonder about what he has deliberately left un-described, resting in the shadows, taking form within the reader's sense of wonder.
Such is the case with The Graveyard Book. Admittedly inspired from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, this story concerns the life of a young orphan, Nobody Owens, as he matures in the graveyard that is his home. It is here that he finds family, knowledge, and ironically, a bit of shelter from the cruel living world beyond the locked gates of the cemetery.
Though considered a work of juvenile literature, The Graveyard Book is doubtless a cheeky, though spine-chilling, work for all readers. It is Gaiman's puzzle for the reader to deduce which environment, that of the living or the dead, is most cruel and dangerous. More often than not, the choice is most eerily inconclusive.
At the very least, this is a wickedly and expertly told story; readers may wonder what life, or perhaps the lack of it, would be like on the dustier side of a ghoul-gate, compared to a chance meeting with an "Every Man Jack" on a cold, pitch-dark and misty street corner. At its best, The Graveyard Book is that plus more: growing up, the thrill of adventure, as well as living death, or perhaps even life, to the fullest.