Graveyard Book

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Neil Gaiman: Graveyard Book (2010, HarperCollins Publishers)

336 pages

English language

Published Dec. 28, 2010 by HarperCollins Publishers.

ISBN:
978-1-4844-5933-1
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5 stars (1 review)

I've read this book so many times! Its about a boy called Nobody Owens, and his story as he finds his family's murderer while being brought up by ghosts.

34 editions

Neil Gaiman brings humor to the cemetery

5 stars

The graveyard book is perfect for Halloween season as it tells of Bod Owens, whose circumstances bring him to live a privileged life, in a graveyard.

I love that Neil Gaiman doesn't talk down to his readers, even the young adults targeted here.

This book is full of humour, both macabre and what I'll say "regular, with Neil Gaiman's cheekiness", with phrases such as "that people are more important than Brussels sprouts" and many other funny moments in Bod's life.

In this fantasy novel, at the back of a crime, I interpret the tale as that of living as an outsider, only understood and accepted by other marginal people in society, represented here through Bod's friends. As the chapters progress, he grows up, and learns of the world around him, I'd also add a coming of age dimension to it.

The wording is deliberate, often changing phrasing to describe the …

Subjects

  • Children's fiction
  • Cemeteries, fiction
  • Orphans, fiction
  • Supernatural, fiction
  • Ghosts, fiction