Thursday Book Review: Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book

My least favorite genre is fantasy. Well, except for the Harry Potter Books, of course. And you’ve already read my posts on the Twilight Saga. And, I did like the Wrinkle in Time trilogy. Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of NIMH was great…

Okay, so maybe I don’t hate fantasy. What I like are books with great characters and all of the books mentioned above have that trait in common. The characters stick with you, long after the “fantastic” part of the stories end.

Frankly, I probably would have never picked up Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book except that I try really hard to keep up with the current award winners. Since The Graveyard Book has a big ol’ Newbery medal slapped across it, I made myself “read” it. Of course, by “read” I mean “listen to” because, as I’ve mentioned before, I do most of my reading in the car. So, instead of miles and miles of forced education about the latest ALA pick, I got an unexpected treat.

Neil Gaiman reads his own work. He’s got one of those lovely, soothing, professional story-teller’s voices. And, he’s British by birth, so you know what that means: the story sounds even better with the accent. C’mon, you know it’s true!

The Graveyard Book is the story of a child given the name Bod--for Nobody Owens. As a baby he manages to crawl away from his home while his family is being cruelly murdered. He crawls through the gates of a cemetery and the cemetery folk take care of the little tyke. He can’t talk yet so no one knows his real name. A nice dead couple by the name of Owens takes on his care so, since he’s nobody in particular, the name makes sense.

A human being can’t really live in a cemetery. A person needs food and clothing after all. Gaiman provides Bod with a special guardian who is the only one who can come and go from the cemetery and still see the ghosts who live there. Still, a story needs tension and Gaiman does a fine job of giving us two problems that will need a solution. Bod will eventually grow up, and like all grown-ups, he will want to see the world beyond his home or in Bod’s case, the cemetery gate. However, the man who killed Bod’s family knows he’s alive and must complete the job he was sent to do.

Pick up The Graveyard Book. It is unlike anything you have ever read before and well-worth the journey.

Photo of Neil Gaiman byBill Wadmanon, 2008, On Taking Pictures.

Women of Wednesday: Two Newbery Winners

“Madeleine L’Engle throws her hands up in the gesture that says ‘Who knows?’ when a visitor asks how many rejections she received for her award-winning book, A Wrinkle in Time.
‘There were over 30,’ she says, ‘It almost never got published. People think it was my first book, but it was the 11th to be written. I call it my “Cinderella book.” You name any major publisher in New York, and they rejected it.’
No on really expected it to sell, she confesses but ‘it really took off.’ It won a Newbery medal in1963, is in its 39th printing…and has come to be considered a children’s classic.” Jean Caldwell, p. 74, On Being a Writer, Writer’s Digest Books, 1989.

This is the story many children’s book writers cling to when the latest rejection letter comes in. A Wrinkle in Time is a wonderful book, and like all of our wonderful books, it just needed to find that special editor who would recognize its wonderfulness.

The most recent Newbery winner is Rebecca Stead who pays homage to L’Engle’s book in her own When You Reach Me. Stead’s book is also a fantasy and a time travel book. The main character, Mira, clings to A Wrinkle in Time. It’s her favorite book and she reads it over and over.

Both L’Engle and Stead wait awhile to let their readers in on the fact that the books are fantasy. L’Engle starts out with enough creepy description that one thinks they may have stumbled onto a ghost story. Those who love pop culture will get the joke in the L’Engle’s opening line as either the one often used by Snoopy in the Peanuts © cartoon strip or as the basis for San Jose State Univeristy’s annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest that seeks examples of overly dramatic fiction:

“It was a dark and stormy night.
In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them creating wraith-like shadows that raced along the ground.”

Stead’s novel, set in the 70’s, opens like any typical pre-teen story with a girl, a single mom, a challenge, and soon, we learn, a friendship that is ending:

“So Mom got the postcard today. It says Congratulations in big curly letters, and at the very top is the address of Studio TV-15 on West 58th Street. After three years of trying, she has actually made it. She’s going to be a contestant on the $20,00 Pyramid, which is hosted by Dick Clark.”
Both stories quickly lead us into the bigger problems faced by the main characters. Meg’s father is missing. Mira’s been getting mysterious and cryptic notes: “I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own…” Time travel will solve both problems.

Both authors have created flawed, believable characters. The impossibilities that create the plots become possible in our minds. Good writers can do that. If you don’t usually make a habit of reading the Newbery authors, start with these two. Get to know a couple of good writers.