The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

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...

After a tragic beginning Bod is being raised, loved and educated by ghosts who are his new family. He also has a guardian that doesn't belong to his world or the ghosts' world and he would do anything to protect Bod. And he does need protecting but not in the graveyard. There are dangers there but he has always been well taken care of. He has so much to explore and to learn. This is a place that offers a wealth of information from all of it's occupants and adventures that any boy would envy. Imagine learning history from the people who were actually there! Bod does need protection if he journeys out of the graveyard because Jack is the man that wants the boy. He needs to finish the job that he started when he killed Bod's entire family. And he's been waiting years.

I had recently read Neil Gaiman's book Coraline and enjoyed it so I thought I would try his newest book. I've liked spooky stories since I was a child and many of them involved a cemetery in some way or another. None of them ever did it quite like this. The graveyard wasn't just a setting, it was a character. Bod interacted with it and the ghosts that reside there throughout the story. There were so many interesting adventures that he participated in because he developed special abilities while living there. He was a living child but he had learned to fade out of view and to see in the darkness. He can see and communicate with ghosts and he can go places that other people can't. His story also involves the magic and the creative imagination of children. The author takes Bod and the reader on an adventure that isn't likely to happen to an adult. I would recommend this story for older children and up due to Bod's violent past. Although it's not graphic it is a frightening theme.

Neil Gaiman's website: neilgaiman.com

Publisher: Harper Collins Children
Release Date: 2008
Pages: 307
Price/format: /hardcover/$17.99
Type: fiction
Age: young adult