Let me start off by saying that Neil Gaiman is awesome! He does pretty much everything, he's written novels for children and for adults, graphic novels, and I want to say an episode of Dr. Who. He has such a unique mind and is able to create all these surreal worlds and people while still making them absolutely believable. So far I have only read The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere, but they were both beautifully dark books and I would completely recommend them.
The Graveyard Book is the story of Nobody 'Bod' Owens, a real-life boy who grows up in an old graveyard, raised by ghosts. A mysterious man, Jack, murdered Bod's family when he was just a-year-and-a-half old. Luckily, the friendly ghosts from the graveyard up the hill protect Bod and take him in as one of their own. Growing up in a graveyard is, as you can imagine, quite different then growing up in the real world. Bod meets deceased people from times long ago, learns the ghostly arts of Fading and Dreamwalking from his tutor, has an encounter with the unknowable Sleer, and is almost killed by ghouls. The Graveyard Book follows Bod on all these adventures, watching him grow up and (as cliche as it sounds) find himself.
A bit of a disclaimer, the book is dark. It starts out--literally--with a knife, with murder. As adult readers, we often expect children's books to be happy and light, but that is underestimating a child's ability to understand the darker aspects of life. Neil Gaiman doesn't baby the children, I guess you could say, which I really like. Madeleine L'Engle spoke of children's great ability to grasp concepts that we don't give them enough credit for when she said, "You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children." The Graveyard Book is a book that is written well, and written for children.
**SPOILERS**
Sorry for the spoilers, but I don't think there's a way to talk about this book effectively without giving something away. I found this book incredibly sad--in a good way, definitely, but sad all the same. Bod, like his guardian, Silas, is an in-between person. He is neither fully living or fully dead. It is a coming of age story (bildungsroman) so by definition the protagonist is in-between, but the isolation of being in between the living and the dead is much different then being between childhood and adulthood. Even Bod's name, Nobody Owens. Nobody owns him, nobody can claim him as their own, he has no kin. And then at the end of the book, as Bod is becoming more and more invested in the corporeal world he is no longer able to see his ghostly friends and family. It is incredibly poignantly sad that he is being thrust out into the world with no connections and friends, leaving behind everything and everyone he knows. But there is hope. There is the hope of real life and all the experiences Bod is aching for and there is also the hope that when his time comes, Death will return Bod to his home in the graveyard. It's just...it's so good.
Just on a side note, I found Neil Gaiman's descriptions of the inverted cemetery wall in the ghouls world and the way the ghouls moved to be amazing.
**END SPOILERS**
A book club I'm in here at Clemson just did The Graveyard Book, and there is honestly just so much to talk about that I don't quite know where to stop. I feel like everything could be its own post, but I'm not really into doing a series so I think we'll just leave it as it is. But if you want, you could think about how the protagonists of children's books are so often orphans, or what really makes a person 'Alive', or why growing up stopped Bod from being able to see the ghosts or some other question that you think might be relevant. I don't know, just go with it.
All in all, I wholeheartedly recommend The Graveyard Book and Neil Gaiman as a whole. I need to get my hands on some more Gaiman! If you want to find him, go here. He writes a lovely little blog that I follow as well.
I am listening to Washed by the Water by Needtobreathe
