The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman

First things first, you should know I love Neil Gaiman. I like the way his mind works and the worlds he creates. Although my eight year old received this for Christmas, I read it before him. Devoured it in a few days. This is what Gaiman does. He creates a world you want to inhabit. Even though it is usually creepy and discomforting, it is undeniably addictive.

In the Graveyard book, a man has come to kill a family, but he underestimated the curious nature of the toddler living in the house, who escapes without knowledge of the carnage and wanders into a nearby graveyard. The ghosts in the graveyard (a game I used to play as a child) come to find the child and are visited by the ghosts of the child's parents, who beg the graveyard inhabitants to protect their child. They agree and give him the run of the graveyard. He is taken under the protection of a mysterious figure named Silas, who, although his parents are two kindly old ghosts, it is Silas who provides most of the boys education.

Together, Silas and the ghosts keep the boy fed, entertained, and most importantly safe from the person or persons invested in killing him, who continue to look for him even after his escape to the graveyard. Along the way, the boy - whose name is Nobody Owens - meets fascinating people from the graveyard and learns to fade into the background and remain unseen.

As children do, he begins to question his mentors and venture out to discover what happened to him and why. This leads to a Gaiman style show down and Nobody shows why what he's learned in the graveyard is the best education he could have received.

Things that don't appear to be connected at first all matter and become connected with time. Bittersweet goodbyes and all that are wrapped up into this beautifully crafted book. What a gift for children to get to encounter Gaiman's creativity in such an accessible novel.

5/5 Stars.