The Graveyard Book

hanli - I really enjoyed reading The Graveyard Book because it was such an amazing and thrilling story full of deep meanings. The book describes the life of a toddler named Nobody Owens that had been raised by the dead and supernatural beings in a graveyard after the murder of his entire family. Throughout the story, Bod faced personal troubles, his interactions with the living and the dead, the secrets of the graveyard, fight between good and evil, and the metaphorical search for meaning of life. As I read the book, I was constantly invited to be amazed, to fear, to smile and to laugh. The story inspired me to find my own faith and follow my rights. The author Neil Gaiman also reminded me of my own transitions in life and makes me want to love and appreciate those around me. The artworks in the book were quite nice and appropriate. It was really entertaining to read the plot of the story, where Scarlett, a girl Bod played with when they were five years old, brought him face to face with Jack ten years later, the murderer of his family. Overall, I thought The Graveyard Book was wonderful with an appreciation of all life, dead and living, and celebrates differences and likenesses.

Starred review from September 29, 2008
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.