STORYTIME: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book is a brilliantly woven and hauntingly beautiful tale. Told in a series of interconnected vignettes, the story teeters on the edge of doom without falling into negativity or despair.

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STORYTIME: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

POSTED: Tuesday, June 28, 2011, 2:00 PM

Each week, Dylan Rhys Williams reviews a new childrens' book that'll twinkle the imaginations of kids and kids at heart.

Iconic graphic novelist and science-fiction author Neil Gaiman has accrued a respectable cult following with his unique (and often downright creepy) literature. But his new novel is certainly worthy of the wide acclaim and the 2009 Newbery Medal it has received. The Graveyard Book (HarperCollins), a modern retelling of Rudyard Kipling’s classic The Jungle Book, chronicles orphan Nobody (“Bod”) Owens' adventures being raised by ghosts in a small graveyard in his hometown. Finding himself embroiled in an international underground conspiracy involving an order of professional assassins, Bod must use the lessons he’s learned from his ghostly encounters to fend off evil and find his rightful place in the limbo between death and life.

The Graveyard Book is a brilliantly woven and hauntingly beautiful tale. Told in a series of interconnected vignettes, the story teeters on the edge of doom without falling into negativity or despair. Its no-nonsense attitude regarding death and celebrating human life while embracing mortality as just another step in our journey, comes as a dissenting voice in a society that fears our demise. Children will love Bod’s various graveyard misadventures and the novelty of his relationships with the ghosts, but Gaiman’s descriptive richness and tongue-and-cheek narration will especially appeal to adults. This is a perfect book for reading together, and a potential starting point for the difficult discussions we must have about death — with both our children and ourselves.

(dylan.williams@citypaper.net)

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