This Newbery Award-winning book is not your usual children’s book. The opening pages are black, with a black and white illustration of a hand holding a knife. The first sentence: “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife” (2). That’s your second indication that this book is going to be odd; the first was the title: The Graveyard Book. However, this is an excellent book whether you are reading it or giving it to a child (although there are some scary parts that may not be good for a kid too young to read. I don’t know what age is acceptable since I don’t have kids so you would have to figure that out on your own).
One night the man Jack comes to a family’s home and kills the mother, father, and their young child. When he looks for their other child, a toddler, he discovers the boy missing. The adventurous toddler has climbed out of his crib, bounced down the stairs on his padded butt, and crawled out the door left open by the man Jack. The boy wanders away from his house to a nearby graveyard. The man Jack sniffs the air for him and tracks him to the graveyard. Once discovered by inhabitants of the graveyard, they argue about whether to keep him while Silas (a creature that is man-shaped but may not be human and apparently is neither dead nor alive) distracts the man Jack and sends him away from the graveyard. There is a meeting of the local graveyard ghosts in which the pros and cons of keeping the toddler are discussed and finally the Lady on the Grey makes the final decision to keep the boy. Mr. and Mrs. Owens are now his parents and Silas is his guardian. There is a safe and warm place to keep the boy and Silas is able to leave the graveyard during the day and procure food and other necessities for the boy. They decide what name to give him, first by discussing who he looks like (Josiah Worthington says the boy looks like his head gardner, Stebbins, but doesn’t think that’s a good name because the man “drank like a fish”) but Mrs. Owens doesn’t like any of the suggestions: “He looks like nobody but himself…he looks like nobody” (25). So he is called Nobody Owens, or Bod for short.
Nobody is raised in the graveyard and when he is old enough he takes lessons in subjects a normal child should know (reading, writing, arithmetic) but he also learns about ghouls (avoid them), the different types of people (living, dead, mist-walkers, and Hounds of Hell) and how to call for help in different languages, including Night-Gaunt. Even though he is human, he lives as a ghost (nocturnal) and learns ghost skills: the Fade, Dreamwalk, Fear, Terror and Haunt. Bod has many adventures in the graveyard (including a run-in with ghouls, Night-Gaunts and a Hound of Hell, all in the same night) and eventually learns how he came to be in the graveyard and what happened to his family. Bod decides that he must find the man Jack and ask him why he murdered his family. Then he will kill the man Jack.
This book is very surreal. Even though the events take place in the modern world (cars and cell phones are mentioned), almost all events take place in the graveyard, which has a sort of otherworldly feel to it. Bod knows very little about the living world or the city where the graveyard is located. He eventually does go to school (for living humans), but he doesn’t fit in very well and uses his Fading skills to help him go unnoticed. There is a sense of timelessness about the novel because there are no mentions of popular culture and few clues as to the time period of the story. Bod’s world (the graveyard) seems to exist separately from the world of the living, the modern world. His world is filled with the supernatural beings of ghouls (and their world, called Ghûlheim) and ghosts and Hounds of Hell and the Jacks. Nothing is really explained and even when it is, it isn’t. Gaiman presents his creatures and his worlds very matter of factly and you either accept them or you don’t. There is a scene towards the end of the book that involves Silas, Miss Lupescu and Kandar, an Assyrian mummy, who is holding a small pig for good luck. They are battling unidentified (to the reader) enemies. That’s about all you know. By the end of the novel you figure out who the enemies in the battle were, but that’s it. There are very little details. The Jacks are interesting and original characters, but you won’t get a lot of explanation about them. They just are. The book is kinda spooky and creepy (the Sleers are scary and somewhat pathetic with their desperate need for a master) and even Bod himself, although likeable, kind and courageous, proves to have a darker side when he teaches fellow (living) students in his school to not be bullies by Haunting them. Bod’s single-minded pursuit of the man Jack and how he gets his revenge also shows that Bod has the capacity for cruelty.
I am a fan of children’s books and some of them I consider among my favorite books and reread them often: Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series, Lloyd Alexander’s Taran the Wanderer series, Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass, and various others. The best children’s fiction is well-written with strong characters. These characters often are children themselves who, in order to grow up, have to make painful choices and reject their childish pleasures. Nobody Owens, the boy in The Graveyard Book, fits this pattern. He is also (as was Taran and Harry Potter) a child alone, no parents to raise him or protect him. His destiny is unknown. Bod, in order to become an adult and grow out of his childhood graveyard world, must learn to live in the living world and face up to who he is. This is another common theme with children’s books, the need to grow up and how painful it is—this often involves losing certain fantastical or supernatural skills with the onset of puberty (Lyra, in The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman, is in tears when she discovers she can no longer read the alethiometer).
Although I think The Graveyard Book can be enjoyed equally by adults and children, Gaiman included some adult humor. The Jacks of All Trades (or Knaves, as one of the Jacks helpfully explains) have interesting names. These are the Jacks mentioned in the book: Jack Tar, Jack Dandy, Jack Ketch, Jack Frost and Jack Nimble. Now some of those (Frost, Nimble, Dandy) are recognizable from nursery rhymes or other expressions (a Jack Dandy being someone who pays a good deal of attention to how he dresses or who dresses in an excessively foppish manner; you probably don’t hear the expression so much anymore), but I Googled Tar and Ketch and some interesting results. Jack Tar may be short for Jack Tarrance, the man suspected to be the Zodiac Killer. Jack Ketch was an English executioner in the 17th century. The word “ketch” has come to mean or represent death, Satan, and the gallows (I’m assuming the use is confined to England since I have never heard the word used on this side of the ocean). They way they speak is also reminiscent of nursery rhymes: “Every man Jack of us.” “Time’s a’ticking.” “Time and tide wait for no man.” “Sick of waiting, we are, every man Jack of us.” There’s a kind of lyrical, sing-song fashion to their speech that is enjoyable, even when they are discussing murder:
Was unfortunate, but like the flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la, absolutely nothing to do with the case. You failed, Jack. You were meant to take care of them all. That included the baby. Especially the baby. Nearly only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades (168).
The Graveyard Book is a fascinating, unusual read. I found it to be a compelling read and hard to put down (even at 2 am). I even learned a new word: susurrus. (Which is a noun meaning a whisper or soft murmuring or rustling sound—courtesy of dictionary.com.) Anytime is a good time to read this book, but this Halloween weekend is particularly appropriate, so go get a copy and read!
There are two copies of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman in the juvenile collection of Baron-Forness Library.
ed Tent retells the story of Dinah, which is found in the Biblical book of Genesis, Chapter 34. This episode, usually known as the "Rape of Dinah" has been a difficult passage for bible readers for centuries because of the murderous behavior of Jacob's sons. In Genesis, Dinah does not say a single word; what happens to her is recounted and characterized as rape by her brothers. In my retelling of the story, Dinah finds her voice. The Red Tent is told entirely from her perspective and the point of view of the women around her. (From the authors website)
ed Tent retells the story of Dinah, which is found in the Biblical book of Genesis, Chapter 34. This episode, usually known as the "Rape of Dinah" has been a difficult passage for bible readers for centuries because of the murderous behavior of Jacob's sons. In Genesis, Dinah does not say a single word; what happens to her is recounted and characterized as rape by her brothers. In my retelling of the story, Dinah finds her voice. The Red Tent is told entirely from her perspective and the point of view of the women around her. (From the authors website)
