The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman
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Book Reviews of The Graveyard Book
Book Review: Of course it's a great book, but check out the illustrations.
Summary: 5 Stars
What I can say about Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book that hasn't already been said? By now, everyone pretty much knows that it's an homage to the Jungle Books and that most everything that Gaiman works on is excellent. The only real item of value to add is that it's like the Mowgli stories in the Jungle Books, not the Jungle Books in their entirety. I suspect that that's what most people think of when they think of "The Jungle Books", so no one should be much disappointed at the lack of a ghoulish Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.
So, with everyone understanding that it's good and all, it's worth buying and reading and well made (as many books these days are not), I'm going to stop talking about Neil's work right now.
Instead, I'm going to talk about Dave McKean.
Dave McKean illustrated this book and did so in a style the blends dark and domineering black pen with light and subtle watercolors (in grey, of course). At the beginning of the story, it's pretty heavy and the art overwhelms the text, but after that it's just a little illustration here and a little one there. Hilary Zarychy, aside from having a last name that I have no idea how to pronounce, did a wonderful job on the typesetting, so the text flows along with the art, showing that the two work together to create one hole, but (and this is VERY important) at no point does the text become difficult to read.
See, a lot of books these days are "illustrated" simply because certain types of books are supposed to be illustrated. However, when you have a book where the illustrations blend together with the story, it creates a whole that is remembered as story and images -- forming a solid marker in the memory that forever reminds one of the experience of reading the story. There are a few books that manage to blend the art and the story together this way, Catherine Coblentz's Blue Cat of Castle Town (Illustrated by Janice Holland and available online for free here), Ruth Stiles Gannett's My Father's Dragon (Illustrated by Ruth Chrisman Gannett and available online for free here) and many of Thornton Burgess's early books (Illustrated by Harrison Cady) come to mind. The Graveyard Book joins this small set of books that will always hold a place in my mind.
I open the book to a random page, 142 to be precise, and I see a small painted stone on a bed of leaves. The lines are simple but definite. The composition is straightforward and uncomplicated. However, I immediately remember the story, the characters, the fear and the sadness. I remember sitting in my brown recliner, reading by the yellow light of my halogen lamp, with a blanket over my legs and two cats sleeping on me. The room is silent and the day's concerns have slipped away as I wander through the life that is Bod's.
That's what illustrations are supposed to do. That's why this book is special beyond the writing.
Book Review: Gaiman's Kind of People
Summary: 5 Stars
So, okay, I admit it. Like untold others, I'm a Neil Gaiman fan. The man is nice (I've had drinks with him not that he'd remember), has a vivid imagination, and writes a remarkable variety of things -- comics, poems, essays, screenplays, adult fantasy, picture books, and kid books -- all quite well. So when he began documenting the progress of writing this book I was very curious to read it. Based on what else of his I'd read (notably Coraline which I love to read aloud), I expected chills, darkness, and humor. The Graveyard Book has all of that, but it also has something I wasn't expecting -- a remarkable tenderness and sweet sadness that made it one of the best things of Gaiman's I've ever read.
This is the story of Bod, short for Nobody, a child being raised by a bevy of graveyard inhabitants. Brought there as a baby, Bod, is nurtured by the warm and affectionate Mr. and Mrs. Owens, supervised by the serious Silus, and taught by many others in this unique and lovely community of ghosts and other such beings. Bod has adventures, makes special friends (not all from within the graveyard or fantasy world), and begins to learn about his past and future.
The story has the feeling of Kipling's Mowgli stories from The Jungle Books -- favorites of mine growing up. Silus resembles Bagheera for me; while I'm not so sure if there are others that can be so easily compared a similar charm, humor, warmth, and originality are in both. And most of all, both involve a boy brought to a completely different world and raised lovingly and carefully by the inhabitants of that world.
One of my favorite chapters in the book is "The Hounds of God." Silus brings a Miss Lupescu to the graveyard to instruct and feed Bod while he is off on a trip. Having already been taught by graveyard inhabitants Letitia Borrows and Mr. Pennyworth ("Compleat Educational System for Younger Gentlemen with Additional Material for those Post Mortem"), Bod doesn't see the need for new teachers. Miss Lupescu quickly proves otherwise.
"Name the different kinds of people," said Miss Lupescu. "Now."
Bod thought for a moment. "The living, " he said. "Er. The dead." he stopped. Then, "...Cats? he offered, uncertainly.
Missing Silus and definitely not enjoying either Miss Lupescu's lessons or cooking, when three strange creatures show up calling themselves the Duke of Westminster, the Honorable Archibald Fitzhugh, and the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Bod eagerly takes off with them. The resulting adventure turns out to be wilder and harsher and more remarkable than he or the reader would expect. Funny, scary, and exciting all at once.
So is the whole book. As well as elegant, gentle, witty, pensive, and moving.
Book Review: Book Review
Summary: 2 Stars
The Graveyard Book is a fair book, but I had some trouble getting into it. It's meant to be a ghost story, but to me it's a book about life; the ups and downs, rights and lefts of life.
The Graveyard Book is a book about an exceptional life of a boy who grows up in the town graveyard. The boy is called Nobody, and the ghost family, Mr. and Mrs. Owens, who care for him complete his name: Nobody Owens. Life for Nobody isn't so
peaceful. He learns how to fade and cause terror, but if he steps out of the graveyard, the man Jack will find him and bring a knife to his throat.
The main character in The Graveyard Book, Nobody, is courageous, and he always does what he thinks is right, and what he believes is right. When his only human friend tells him what she has learned, Nobody believes that she's right, so he follows. That also show how trusting Nobody is. If his trust were money, it's all invested in one place, and if that bank dies, so does the trust that Nobody put in it. One of Nobody's best traits is that he cares about the people around him. When he and his friend were in danger, Nobody could fade, but his friend couldn't. He didn't just run off and leave her to the wolves; he helped her escape, even if it meant him dying. Over all Nobody grows up to be a fine young man.
Neil Gaiman (the author of The Graveyard Book) uses a type of foreshadowing that's unique. The first chapters are referred back to at the end of the book. For example, Nobody finds lots of tombs. Those are referred to at end. That's the good stuff about Neil Gaiman's writing. The bad thing is that he doesn't make the chapters very interesting. He has chapters that focus on nothing more then a dance and something shown in many other places throughout the book. The chapter about the dance is very confusing. You don't really know what it's there for, and I couldn't figure out what was going on in the chapter. Neil Gaiman also needs to introduce characters more, if he wants you to like (or hate) that character. One character dies in the story that you don't really know, but that character was important to the story. That's what I think of Neil Gaiman's writing style.
The Graveyard Book is a good book for you if you like books about life. (But be careful! This one has a twist!) It will also be a good book for you if you like a book that go flat, and then up hill. I didn't like The Graveyard Book because books with excitement make me happy, and The Graveyard Book has two or three chapters with excitement in them. If you stick through with all the ups and downs of The Graveyard Book, at the end I loved the book. So if you like books about life, or can stay with a book, and give it a try, then The Graveyard Book is the book for you.
Book Review: Everybody Should Meet Nobody
Summary: 5 Stars
I first met Bod (Nobody) Owens in a short story in an anthology and desperately wanted to read more about him. A visit to Neil Gaiman's website put me out of my misery, reassuring me that the story was a chapter from an upcoming book. I've been waiting for that book ever since. So yes, today, the first day The Graveyard Book was available, I bought a copy and read it cover to cover.
Which means I just gave that contented, yet slightly desolate sigh one gives at the end of a really good book. As the author has noted, this book was inspired by the premise of The Jungle Book, except that the setting is a graveyard. (Note the parallel titles!) The Graveyard Book begins with the horrific murders of a father, mother, and daughter; only the youngest child, a toddler, escapes, meandering out the open door of the death-filled house and right up to the fence of a nearby graveyard.
There ghostly Mr. and Mrs. Owens respond to the plea of the child's dead mother and offer to act as his foster parents. A strange being named Silas further agrees to be the baby's guardian, providing protection and bringing necessary items such as food from the outside world. That same night, murderous Jack is led away by Silas, never dreaming that his lost prey will spend the next dozen years growing up within the graveyard gates. (Jack, for reasons of his own, continues to search for Bod in order to kill him.)
As the years pass, Bod is raised and tutored by the dead. He explains, "Letitia Borrows teaches me writing and words, and Mr. Pennyworth teaches me his Compleat Educational System for Younger Gentlemen with Additional Material for Those Post Mortem." Besides Bod's somewhat archaic education in ordinary subjects, he learns, whether by instruction or sad experience, how to Fade, Haunt, and Dreamwalk, as well as how to befriend a dead witch, call a nightgaunt, and avoid ghouls.
I'll just mention one of the many perfect touches: the way Gaiman includes the inscriptions on gravestones in describing some of Bod's ghostly acquaintances, e.g., the aforementioned teacher, "Miss Letitia Borrows, Spinster of this Parish (Who Did No Harm to No Man all the Dais of Her life. Reader, Can You Say Lykewise?)."
It's easy to praise the author's craftsmanship and subtle humor. And Neil Gaiman's horror/fantasy is strikingly imaginative in comparison to almost everything else out there. But most important, Nobody Owens and his ghostly community are worth falling in love with. Their interactions, along with Bod's growing pains, exhibit a quiet, matter-of-fact tenderness that is missing in most books for adults AND children these days. There's been a lot of talk about Coraline, but The Graveyard Book is even better.
Book Review: In a word, exceptional
Summary: 5 Stars
There are few writers out there today who have the ability to keep me totally spellbound. David Almond, for sure. A handful of adult novelists. One author who gets my undivided attention every time with his mastery of language and devotion to limitless imagination is Neil Gaiman. Whether he's writing graphic novels, short stories, sci-fi novels or fiction for young adults, he always brings his "A" game to the table. His most recent work, THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, takes his standard "A" game to a whole new level of measured storytelling.
Drawing inspiration from Rudyard Kipling's classic THE JUNGLE BOOK, Gaiman tells the story of an orphaned boy, raised not in a jungle by animals but in a graveyard by ghosts. Bod, short for Nobody, wanders into the graveyard as an infant as his family is dispatched by "the man Jack." In the graveyard, Bod is discovered by the kindly ghosts of Mr. and Mrs. Owens, who entice the other local spirits to take the boy in and grant him the "Freedom of the Graveyard" (a special charm that gives Bod sanctuary within the graveyard's boundaries). A being called Silas --- who is neither fully dead nor alive (and may actually be a vampire) --- is charged with being the boy's guardian and seeing that he's educated.
Bod's childhood is filled with the varied lessons taught to him from the graveyard's residents. His teachers include Miss Lupescu, a strict but sympathetic werewolf, and a witch named Liza Hempstock, who skulks about the graveyard's unsanctified ground. But, as you'd expect, the graveyard is also full of dangers, such as the set of devious ghouls Bod encounters who go by names like the Duke of Westminster and the Thirty-Third President of the United States. But little prepares him for the day when the man Jack returns to finish the job he started years ago.
Although he tips his hat to Kipling, Gaiman skillfully makes the story his own with his boundlessly creative imagery and energetic prose. In crafting the tale of Bod, Gaiman revisits the occasionally dark and funny, and always enthralling, ground he covered in CORALINE. Many of the chapters stand alone as short stories, but every small adventure adds up to form a complete tale that feels timeless and important. And the climactic scene towards the end is not to be missed. Fans of his other works will not be disappointed, and there's a very good chance he'll amass an entirely new armada of admirers once word spreads about how phenomenal this book is.
THE GRAVEYARD BOOK is, in a word, exceptional. Gaiman remains a force to be reckoned with, no matter the intended audience, regardless of the subject matter.
--- Reviewed by Brian Farrey