The Graveyard Book Neil Gaiman; Dave McKean (Illustrator)

The Graveyard Book

Author: Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean (Illustrator)

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Publication Date: 30 September, 2008

ISBN: 9780060530921

Pages: 320

Subjects: Juvenile fiction

Available as: Trade Cloth, 978-0-06-053092-1 Trade Cloth, 978-1-4104-1441-0 Other, 978-0-06-171282-1 Trade Paper, 978-0-06-208155-1 Trade Paper, 978-0-06-053094-5 Trade Paper, 978-0-06-170912-8 E-Book - Epublication content package, 978-0-06-197265-2 Audio Recording Downloadable, 978-1-4356-9577-1 E-Book - Mobipocket, 978-0-06-170939-5 E-Book - Gemstar REB 1200, 978-0-06-170942-5 E-Book - eReader (AKA Palm Reader), 978-0-06-170941-8 E-Book - netLibrary, 978-0-06-170938-8 E-Book - Sony Format, 978-0-06-170943-2 E-Book - Microsoft Reader Level 5, 978-0-06-170940-1

Description:

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy-an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack--who has already killed Bod's family. . . . Beloved master storyteller Neil Gaiman returns with a luminous new novel for the audience that embraced his "New York Times" bestselling modern classic coraline. Magical, terrifying, and filled with breathtaking adventures, the graveyard book is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.

PW Publishers Weekly

Review Source: Publishers Weekly

Review Date: 2008-09-29

A lavish middle-grade novel, Gaiman's first since Coraline, this gothic fantasy almost lives up to its extravagant advance billing. The opening is enthralling: "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife." Evading the murderer who kills the rest of his family, a child roughly 18 months old climbs out of his crib, bumps his bottom down a steep stairway, walks out the open door and crosses the street into the cemetery opposite, where ghosts take him in. What mystery/horror/suspense reader could stop here, especially with Gaiman's talent for storytelling? The author riffs on the Jungle Book, folklore, nursery rhymes and history; he tosses in werewolves and hints at vampires--and he makes these figures seem like metaphors for transitions in childhood and youth. As the boy, called Nobody or Bod, grows up, the killer still stalking him, there are slack moments and some repetition--not enough to spoil a reader's pleasure, but noticeable all the same. When the chilling moments do come, they are as genuinely frightening as only Gaiman can make them, and redeem any shortcomings. Ages 10-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved