The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman

“Rattle his bones
Over the stones
It’s only a pauper
Who nobody owns”

Sally put this on my desk last week and recommended it with the words “It is good” (somehow these words on the page don’t quite reflect the reverent tone this was spoken in). Fellow author Diana Wynne Jones (Howls Moving Castle) described it as “The best book Neil Gaiman has ever written” which is high praise indeed for an award winning and very popular writer of graphic novels, children’s and adults fiction.

Nobody Owens is a living human toddler, who just happens to have been adopted by the residents of the local graveyard, who just happen to be… dead. The ghosts don’t know his name so they call him Nobody, Bod for short. Bod grows up in the graveyard which has plenty of dangers (the sleer, the ghouls) but many friends (although sometimes it is hard to decide at the beginning of the chapter whether the ghosts/people that Bod meets are friend or foe (I will leave it to you to discover which category Liza the witch or Miss Lupescu fit into). Overseeing everything is Bod’s guardian, the mysterious Silas. Outside the gates of the graveyard has it’s own perils as the man with knife who dispatched Bod’s first family (the human one) is still searching for him to finish the job.

This is a fantastically entertaining book which sits on our Teen fiction shelves, but could equally be satisfying for adults and children. It would make a great read-aloud for families or classrooms. One of my best reads of the year.

If you won't take my word for it and want to read other reviews, a summary and an excerpt click on this link from Syndetics which is part of our catalogue.