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The Graveyard Book

By Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean (Illustrator)

(340)

| Paperback | 9780061712821

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Book Description

Nobody Owens, known as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a graveyard, being raised by ghosts, with a guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living not of the dead. There are adventures in the graveyard for a boy - an ancient Indigo Man, a gateway to tContinue

Nobody Owens, known as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a graveyard, being raised by ghosts, with a guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living not of the dead. There are adventures in the graveyard for a boy - an ancient Indigo Man, a gateway to the abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible Sleer. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, he will be in danger from the man Jack - who has already killed Bod's family.
Master storyteller Neil Gaiman returns with a luminous new novel about life and death, love and growing up, and finding family in the most unlikely places.

Critics

  • Ghost stories

    The Graveyard Book begins, as so many children's novels seem to do these days, with a multiple murder. A mysterious character known only as "the man Jack" sneaks into a family home and kills mum, dad and older sister. When he reaches the nursery, how ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

  • Life among the dead

    ‘There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.’ The Graveyard Book has one of the most arresting opening sentences one could imagine. Fortunately, Neil Gaiman then leaves melodrama for something much more interesting and thoughtful. By chanc ... (read full critics)

    spectator published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

34 Reviews

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  • 7 people find this helpful

    So much life in a graveyard

    Awesome. Amusing and eerie in that unique Gaiman's sort of way.
    Neil Gaiman is a master in telling stories on the boundaries between life and death, dreams and reality, what's real and what's possible. When you walk in a graveyard you always imagine what can it be, the secret life of dead soul ... (continue)

    Awesome. Amusing and eerie in that unique Gaiman's sort of way.
    Neil Gaiman is a master in telling stories on the boundaries between life and death, dreams and reality, what's real and what's possible. When you walk in a graveyard you always imagine what can it be, the secret life of dead souls who rest. Well, what you feel in your soul and in your guts, what you hope for, what you dream of, Neil makes it real. And you simply love, and care for, and feel utterly protective on innocent, lonely and brave Nobody Owens.
    After i opened it i've been unable to stop reading it and i found myself crying at the end: for the story is so moving, and for it's such a pity the book had to finish. Because you would never stop reading Bod's adventures.
    Yes. Awesome.

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    virinthesky said on Jan 24, 2009 | Add your feedback

  • 1 person find this helpful

    I've never been into horror but...

    ...questa e' una storia carina, e non solo per children. Gaiman e' di casa nel cimitero, pare.

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    KillingTime said on Feb 14, 2012 about the eBook edition | 1 feedback

  • *** This comment contains spoilers! ***

    What a beautiful book!

    Truly, I didn't expect that it would captivate me with such intensity!
    I chiefly buy it (it's sad to admit it) due to its front-drawing. I loved it. Besides there was the fact that I do love Gaiman's writing and stories (exception made for Neverwhere, I've never could with that book yet), so I suppo ... (continue)

    Truly, I didn't expect that it would captivate me with such intensity!
    I chiefly buy it (it's sad to admit it) due to its front-drawing. I loved it. Besides there was the fact that I do love Gaiman's writing and stories (exception made for Neverwhere, I've never could with that book yet), so I supposed this one wouldn't be different. The only thing that slowed me was that it's labelled for 'young adults', aka teens, and though I had been the people who was most fond of that kind of novels, I had left them behind long, long ago, so I didn't know which impression it'd cause on me.
    And I have to say it's the best impression of all.

    But let's take it easy: I admit The Graveyard Book is a slow burn. I can't say when one is young if the impression is different, but for a twentish girl, it starts strikingly, but after the first, maybe second chapter, as I see it, the intensity decreases a little, in fact I left the book untouched for several days, I know I was making a mountain out of a molehill, but it was utterly out of my depth.
    Thereafter I reconsidered and I took it again, and ''forced'' myself to keep reading, and in fact when I had already read the ghoul stuff I resumed my interest in it (although seen it now, I enjoyed the ghouls chapt too!).

    The story develops in several chapters and each one (at least in the first ones) contains a oneshot story. In each oneshot, Bod has grown about two years, and it is that way until he reaches youth.

    The truth is that in spite of the novel being for teens, I enjoyed it enormously, and I think Gaiman achieves a novel that can both entertain children, for they get lost in the adventure and so forth, but also adults, for it has dialogues and little jokes that maybe an adult enjoys better.
    I just enjoyed it so much I ended up crying like a child when I finished it.

    I would enlight the character that's Silas. OK, I admit it, I love him. And as Gaiman himself tells, there's been other people who also love him. And why? I cannot tell exactly why, the truth is that he doesn't appear that often and his role, although remarkable, it's not the definitive role, but as far as I'm concerned, I just can't stop loving him! The way he cares for Bod, SPOILERS from now on that he even lets himself get involved in a car accident to protect him , his misty and misterious attitude (that only unravels its truth at the end, and it's something I will write about later)... For instance, the way Gaiman introduces him to us, I quote: "The man Jack was tall. This man was taller. The man Jack wore dark clothes. This man's clothes were darker. People who noticed the man Jackwhen he went about his business were troubled, or made uncomfortable, or found themselves unaccountably scared. The man Jack looked up at the stranger, and it was the man Jack who was troubled." And if you know what the man Jack is, I swear to you it's a bloody good introduction to Silas.
    What unravels at the end, at least as I see it, is that Silas is actually a vampire, one who did very, very weird things when young and now seems that has found his path, and that's a good fellow. But you understand all at once the feeling you couldn't get over along the book that something was odd with Silas. You knew he was a good one, but there was something dark in him. And it makes him interesting!
    I have to admit that it startled me at the very first aknowledge of what Silas was, for Gaiman doesn't tell anything about vampires through the book, and when you lear Silas doesn't reflect in a pizzeria's table, it's a little bit what the? but thereafter it starts to make sense (though I wouldn't have disliked it if Gaiman had left Silas as a riddle).

    Moreover, there are a lot of remarkable characters, and I dare to say the most of them are very secondary ones, dead people from the graveyard but that make you laugh, as it does the poet who accomplish a great vengeance (form it's point of view).
    There's also the Sleer, Liza the witch, the little friend of Bod Scarlett, the loving Mrs Owens and the old-fashioned Mr Owens, the misterious Grey Lady, and so forth.

    Summarizing, Gaiman creates a book which both adults and teenagers can enjoy, and if you're an adult one, let youself get caught by the magic of the book, let yourself remember yourself when you were twelve, thirteen and how would you have enjoyed such a book.

    Finally, I just want to say I'm sure you will enjoy The Graveyard Book, and specially I would recommend it to you if, in some aspect, you've never stopped being a child.

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    Lucky July said on May 9, 2011 | Add your feedback

  • Good but Sooo Ungratifying!

    I've decided I do like Neil Gaiman's books but after reading Graveyard, I am going to proceed with caution before diving into anything else of his. Reason being, I'm finding his writing to be a bit of a "lit tease"; loads of build up followed by a piddle of a climax. Now I'm not trying to make this ... (continue)

    I've decided I do like Neil Gaiman's books but after reading Graveyard, I am going to proceed with caution before diving into anything else of his. Reason being, I'm finding his writing to be a bit of a "lit tease"; loads of build up followed by a piddle of a climax. Now I'm not trying to make this review one big sexual innuendo and I realize how inappropriate that would be given the book is intended for the YA audience but I honestly can't think of a better way to compare the reading experience! For the whole of the story I was teeming with questions about Bod, his family, his real identity, the source of his powers (or rather, super natural abilities), etc. Excitement was building like a crescendo as I approached what I anticipated to be an extraordinary resolution. But as the space between my current reading point and back cover of the book continued to shrunk in width and the story started to wind down, I soon realized that I was to enjoy no such elucidation. Instead of tying up loose ends, Gaiman just cuts them off. No decent explanations, no last minute twists, nothing. There's just a generic fight scene, a few tearful goodbyes, and the book falls on its face like me after a bender.
    If you are already an avid Neil Gaiman fan, then by all means, give Graveyard Book a shot. But if you are anything like me and require a capstone to your plot climbing efforts, then pass this one by.

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    ReadingQueen 12/17 said on Dec 28, 2010 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

  • "If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained."

    Gaiman di qui, Gaiman di là. All'inizio cercavo di trovarci dei difetti giusto perché per un uomo che scrive libri per bambini lodati oltremodo anche dagli adulti e che si sposa niente meno che Amanda Palmer, ini ... (continue)

    "If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained."

    Gaiman di qui, Gaiman di là. All'inizio cercavo di trovarci dei difetti giusto perché per un uomo che scrive libri per bambini lodati oltremodo anche dagli adulti e che si sposa niente meno che Amanda Palmer, inizialmente, non si può che provare repulsione e fremente gelosia. Devo però fare la persona obiettiva e dire che il libro mi è piaciuto.

    "You used to wear a sort of a coat, it was orange, and whenever I saw this particular colour orange, I'd think of you."

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    The Girl said on Dec 11, 2010 | Add your feedback

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