Neil Gaiman returns to young-adult territory with THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, a low-stakes, high-reward riff on Rudyard Kipling’s THE JUNGLE BOOK, charting the childhood of Nobody Owens, a boy raised not by animals in the wild, but by spirits in the cemetery.
In the opening pages, the child’s entire family is slaughtered by a knife-wielding man known only as Jack, for reasons unknown. Somehow, the baby escapes, tottering his way toward the local graveyard, where he’s adopted by the friendly ghost couple with the last name Owens. Since the infant can’t speak, they name him Nobody — Bod for short.
As he grows, by roughly a couple of years per chapter, Bod befriends a little girl who thinks he’s imaginary; meets a witch, despite being told not to by his guardian; dances the danse macabre; ventures out of the graveyard, with near-disastrous results; convinces the spirits to let him go to school, which also has near-disastrous results; and seeks revenge on Jack, who still vows to slay the youth.
I don’t care if this intended for ages 9 to 12; kids aren’t going to appreciate this as much as Gaiman’s adult followers. The young may be put off by his dry humor and subtle wit, like how each dead character is introduced by parenthetical dates and lines taken from his or her tombstone. I’m not saying they’ll dislike like, but it doesn’t have the instant accessibility of CORALINE. Hopefully, they’ll give it a go regardless.
Frequent Gaiman collaborator Dave McKean provides the wonderful illustrations inside. They don’t look like his “normal” work (as if anything that springs from his imagination is normal), but are perfectly in line with the novel’s semi-grim tone. Even if the plot is a little lacking at first, with the whole Jack situation disappearing for several chapters, THE GRAVEYARD BOOK as a whole is better and more enriching than his last effort for adults, ANANSI BOYS. Whatever your age, dig in. —Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• ANANSI BOYS by Neil Gaiman
• FRAGILE THINGS: SHORT FICTIONS AND WONDERS by Neil Gaiman
