Book Reivew: The Graveyard Book

Book
The Graveyard Book
Written by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Dave McKean

Nobody Owens, know to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy.

He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead.

There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy--an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to the desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer.

But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack--who has already killed Bod's family...

Beloved master storyteller Neil Gaiman returns witha luminous new novel for the audience that embraced his New York Times bestselling modern classic Coraline. Magical, terrifying, and filled with breathtaking adventures, The Graveyard Book is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.

NEIL GAIMAN is the author of several books for children, including the New York Times bestelling Coraline; the collection of short stories for young readers M is for Magic; and Interworld, co-authored with Michael Reaves. His picture books included The Wolves in the Walls and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, illustrated by Dave McKean, and The Dangerous Alphabet, illustrated by Gris Grimly. He wrote the script for the film MirrorMask and is also the author of nationally bestselling, critically acclaimed, and award-winning novels and shorts stories for adults as well as the Sanman series of graphic novels and other graphic novels, including the graphic novel adaptation of Coraline. Among his many awards are the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award. Originally from England, Gaiman now lives in the United States. Visit him online at http://www.mousecircus.com/.

Review
I selected this novel to read for two reasons, 1) it had "graveyard" in the title which is a key word I keep my eyes peeled for as possibly being related to the subject of cemeteries and 2) I hadn't really heard anything bad about it.

Well The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman is juvenile fiction making it very "light" (and enjoyable) reading for me, what I absolutely adored as a taphophilia was how Gaiman rendered the graveyard experience into the story.

When visiting a cemetery, a person does not just look at the markers and scenery but read tombstones. There are 12 instances where this "graveyard lingo" appears much like a transcribers work and for me, made the book a truly well done fictionalized graveyard experience.
As the reader in me wants to share, here are the 12 accounts:

p. 39 - ...while Bod lay in the spring sunlight watching a bronze-colored beetle wandering across the stone of Geo. Reeder, his wife, Dorcas, and their son Sebastian [Fidelis ad Mortem].

p. 48 - ...the boy popped up--literally, like a jack-in-a-box--from behind a tombstone [Joji G. Shoji, d. 1921, I was a stranger and you took me in].

p. 96 - Doctor Tregusis [1870-1936, May He Wake to Glory] inspected it and pronounced it merely sprained.

p. 104 - The moon had begun to rise by the time Bod reached Mr Pennyworth's mausoleum, and Thomes Pennyworth [here he lyes in the certainty of the moft glorious refurrection] was already waiting, and was not it the best of moods.

p. 106 - And so it went, until it was time for Grammar and Composition with Miss Letitia Borrows, Spinster of this Parish [Who Did No Harm to No Man all the Dais of Her Life. Reader, Can You Say Lykewise?].

p. 140 - Bob was walking, sleepily and a little gingerly, past the small tomb of the wonderfully named Miss Liberty Roach [What she spent is lost, what she gave remains with her always. Reader be Charitable]...

pp. 163-4 - He went down the hill at a run, a ten-year-old boy in a hurry, going so fast he almost tripped over Digby Poole [1785-1860, As I Am So Shall You Be]...

p. 174 - Bod sighed and he lowered the book, and leanded out enought to see Thackeray Porringer [1720-1734, son of the above] come stamping up the slippery path.

p. 176 - ... while Miss Euphemia [186-1883, She Sleeps, Aye, Yet She Sleeps with Angels] had been buried in Victorian times...

p. 209 - Bod rubbed his hand over the stone of Thomas R. Stout [1817-1851. Deeply regretted by all who knew him]...

p. 221 - "Majella Godspeed, Spinister of this Parish, 1791-1870, Lost to All But Memory," Scarlett read aloud.

p. 231 - Nehemiah Trot was the Poet's name, and his gravestone, beneath the greenery, read: Here lies the mortal remains of / Nehemiah Trot / Poet / 1741-1774 / Swans Sing Before They Die

So, go! Read! And tell me if I missed any!

Source: Gaiman, Neil. The graveyard book. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2008.