Graveyard Book

If you have kids, or work in a bookstore or library, you probably know that Neil Gaiman won the Newberry for the Graveyard Book. As such the hold list at the library was fairly long, but it was worth the wait.

Gaiman uses the Jungle Book as inspiration, but makes the story very much his own. After losing his family, a boy named Bod (short for Nobody) is raised by ghosts as well as a mysterious character who lives amongst the dead but is not truly dead himself. Bod learns the ghostly arts of subterfuge and uses them in a number of unfortunate encounters with the living world.

The narrative is wonderfully constructed. While it initially appears to be a series of unrelated, if quite entertaining, stories, each episode serves to develop a satisfying conclusion. He also manages to slip in all sorts of hints of backstory that fascinate. I was thinking it would be fun to learn more about some of these things, maybe in some follow up short stories, but look what wanting to know more about the Clone Wars got us. The illustrations are great too.

While I really liked the book, I am not sure I want to share it with my kids, at least just yet. In the first few pages there is a rather dramatic death involving a family. Now, you can't watch a Disney cartoon without running into a tragic parent death. Most of them are sad but not necessarily scary. The opening scent of Finding Nemo is an exception, in fact we usually skip it. In the Graveyard Book a decidedly creepy and likely nightmare inducing fellow dispatches the family with a sharp razor. It creeped me out and gave me visions of a tall angular fellow hiding just beyond my view. I can just imagine what it will do for the kids.