Review | The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The Newbery committee did a wonderful job in choosing this book to be their winner in 2009. The committee does not often choose fantasy/paranormal books for it’s award. But The Graveyard Book was fantastic, and definitely deserved the Newbery. Gaiman creates a world so out of the box and yet so completely believable and acceptable that throughout the book I found myself thinking it wouldn’t be so bad growing up in a graveyard with a bunch of ghosts for family.

The story is re-telling of the classic, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. In this version, Nobody Owens (Bod), an orphan of a murdered family, finds safety from his family’s murderer within the gates of an old graveyard. As Bod grows up in the graveyard, he learns many lessons and skills that help him navigate the joys and pitfalls of youth.

I fell in love with Nobody and his graveyard family. Gaiman does a great job creating relevant, endearing, and interesting characters. I even got teary at the end of this book and found myself wanting more.

My book group read this book and almost all the adults really enjoyed it. Read, read, read this book!

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Overall Rating: 

Parent’s guide:

• Sex: none
• Violence: a family is murdered in their sleep, Bod is hunted by an evil man throughout the book and this man tries to kill him and his friend, Bod is kidnapped by ghouls and taken to the underworld, some of the ghouls are killed, the evil man is killed by a creepy creature in the graveyard
• Language: the word ‘hell’ is used to describe the underworld