The Graveyard Book- Neil Gaiman
“There was a hand in the darkness and it held a knife. The knife had a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor. If it sliced you, you might not even know you had been cut, not immediately. The knife had done almost everything it was brought to that house to do, and both the blade and the handle were wet.”
CSI? Criminal Minds? A Martha Grimes crime mystery? No- just the start of the Newbery-award winning book, The Graveyard Book. The killer goes on to the nursery where he means to kill the toddler after having killed mother, father and older sister. Mercifuuly, the toddler has escaped the confines of crib, found his way down the stairs and through the open front door, whereupon he proceeds up the hill to the graveyard. Here, the ghosts who inhabit the graveyard, are unsure what to do with this little human, until Mr. and Mistress Owens choose to adopt him. Silas, who is neither alive nor dead, will be his guardian. And thus follows one glorious romp of a story. Nobody Owens, or Bod, as he comes to be called, has the run of the graveyard, and is accepted and generally loved by all the ghosts who inhabit it. There are adventures galore- friendship with a real little girl who visits the graveyard, with a witch who has been buried in unconsecrated ground and with Silas who is his constant for advice and security. It begins to heat right up when we become aware that “they” are still after Bod and won’t be satisfied until he is dead as well. The quality of writing is undeniably great.
But now for somewhat of a dilemma. Where does this fit in my school library? It is too young to be in the YA (Young Adult) section and yet I am reluctant for some of my younger, perhaps more impressionable students, to have ready access to it. I rarely read other reviews until I have written my own but this time I needed to hear what others had to say about this.
School Library Journal does question ” the violence of our world trickling down into our entertainment”, but then goes on to say “it was one of the most emotionally honest books” read this year. I’m not sure what that means, exactly. I did love this book, don’t get me wrong; it was a page-turner. But I do suggest you read it for yourself to determine where it fits into your literary world.
Please, if you’ve read it, would you comment and let me know your thoughts? I would love some feedback on this.
Check out the excellent book trailer narrated by Neil Gaiman.
Update: I just read the beginning lines to a grade 5 class and they are enthralled! And I guess that’s exactly what we want!!
Update 2- Received this link from a reader- author reads the entire book! Worth checking out!
http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx?VideoID=1
Fantasy, Middle Years | Comments (7)7 Responses to “The Graveyard Book- Neil Gaiman”
Leave a Reply
[...] post: The Graveyard Book- Neil Gaiman Tagged with: [...]
I spent a snow day off of school and loved listening to the author, Neil Gaiman read the entire novel online.
He adds his masterful storytelling voice to the well written plot.
Here is the link
http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx?VideoID=1
My fourth graders were focused as they listened to chapter one. One girl did show signs of emotion during the knife part. Once we got past that part, there were only smiles and intense listening.
Thanks for the link- I will enjoy listening to it. I do think it would make a fabulous read-aloud and may see if I could do that for one of my classrooms. I did read the beginning the other day to a Grade 5 group as an example of a great passage for Literature Circles and they begged me to keep reading. So maybe our kids aren’t as innocent as I might like to think- thanks for your input.
I was very pumped about this book after reading it and asked a group of Grade four students (my Library Club) if they would like it to be our choice for a read aloud. They have always been very keen for scary stories! I explained that it had just won the Newbery Medal and that it was intense especially at the beginning but they have loved it so far. Maybe I have become de-sensitized to violence myself because it just did not occur to me that it might be “too” violent for the students. However, I read some comments on another blog and some of the posts there were just appalled that this book had won the Newbery and at its violent content. I will follow these postings with interest!
I finished The Graveyard this morning and was totally engaged through the whole book. After chatting with you about this book before I read it, I was prepared for a very gory beginning but, although I know it is violent, the absence of emotion removes the need for the reader to empathize with the toddler. I hunch younger children will read it in the spirit of fantasy much like they would a scary fairy tale. I think The Graveyard will endure as a rollicking good scary fantasy adventure. I can hardly wait to hear the reactions of students. I also love that Neil Gaiman uses British (Canadian) spellings even though the book is published in the States. Althogether, a great addtion to the scary story genre.
Florence, I appreciated what you said about this book being read in the spirit of fantasy- I think you are right but do you not think the beginning might be too much for some readers? What about parents? How do they think they will feel about this story? Although it does become a fantasy story, the beginning is all too real for my taste. Actually, it is my taste- but I am an adult!!
I thought the beginning had a lot of similarity to A Series of Unfortunate Events – very Dickensonian (is that the word) – I reread it aloud and still don’t see that it is either graphic or violent in its description (although we all know what has happened) and I don’t think it is “too much” for grade 5 up. .I am sure there are some parents who would think it not appropriate for their children. They may also not want their children reading about ghosts and graveyards. However, I think Gaiman has done a masterful job of leaving the violence to the imagination of the reader. Did I answer your questions?