After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise h...
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reviews
Jul 31, 2008
Elizabeth
rated it: 
I’ve noticed that there’s been an increased interest in the macabre in children’s literature lately. Sometimes when I’ve had a glass or two of wine and I’m in a contemplative mood I try weaving together a postulation that ties the current love of violent movies into this rise in children’s literary darkness. Is the violence of the world today trickling down into our entertainment? Hogwash and poppycock and other words of scoff and denial, says sober I. But I’ve certainly seen a distinct rise
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26 comments
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(131 people liked it)
Nov 28, 2011
Ceridwen
rated it:
This is the sweetest story I can think of that begins with the bloody murder of a baby boy's family. The boy is then adopted by the dead and undead denizens of a graveyard, and the stand-alone short stories that make up the novel take place at roughly two year increments throughout his life.
The best of children's stories speak to both the parents and the kids. Sometimes I think about crap like The Yearling and other I-had-to-shoot-Old-Yeller-because-it's-somehow-good-for-me stories More...
The best of children's stories speak to both the parents and the kids. Sometimes I think about crap like The Yearling and other I-had-to-shoot-Old-Yeller-because-it's-somehow-good-for-me stories More...
8 comments
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(33 people liked it)
Oct 18, 2008
Valerie
rated it:
This is how it usually goes with me and Neil Gaiman books:
Scene: at the library.
Picks up Stardust and reads back flap... thinks, "hey, this looks like a great book. What an interesting idea for a story..." When actually reading Stardust: bored.
A couple months later. At the library.
Picks up Neverwhere... thinks, "hmmm. This looks really interesting, but that's what I thought about Stardust. Well, maybe I'll give him one last chance." When ac More...
Scene: at the library.
Picks up Stardust and reads back flap... thinks, "hey, this looks like a great book. What an interesting idea for a story..." When actually reading Stardust: bored.
A couple months later. At the library.
Picks up Neverwhere... thinks, "hmmm. This looks really interesting, but that's what I thought about Stardust. Well, maybe I'll give him one last chance." When ac More...
32 comments
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(67 people liked it)
Oct 16, 2008
Meredith
rated it: 
**SPOILER ALERT**
This book was entirely mediocre. The plot was disjointed and very loosely woven throughout the story, and much of it didn't make any sense. Details (what few details there were) seemed to be added at the last minute to make later events in the story make sense. It's almost as if Gaiman wrote the middle first, then the beginning, and then the end. I think he had a million ideas floating around in his head and had no idea how to connect them all, so he made up some More...
This book was entirely mediocre. The plot was disjointed and very loosely woven throughout the story, and much of it didn't make any sense. Details (what few details there were) seemed to be added at the last minute to make later events in the story make sense. It's almost as if Gaiman wrote the middle first, then the beginning, and then the end. I think he had a million ideas floating around in his head and had no idea how to connect them all, so he made up some More...
16 comments
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(36 people liked it)
Jan 26, 2009
Jackie "the Librarian"
rated it:
Newbery Winner, 2009!!!! Woot! I am thrilled that this book won the Newbery Award! Congratulations to Neil Gaiman!
Update with spoilers: While I loved the main part of the story - Bod living in the graveyard, learning from the ghosts - I didn't find the reason for him being there well enough developed.
A vague prophecy about the boy growing up to destroy the "Jacks", and so a Jack is sent to kill the whole family? And he didn't START with the boy? It all seemed like a More...
Update with spoilers: While I loved the main part of the story - Bod living in the graveyard, learning from the ghosts - I didn't find the reason for him being there well enough developed.
A vague prophecy about the boy growing up to destroy the "Jacks", and so a Jack is sent to kill the whole family? And he didn't START with the boy? It all seemed like a More...
7 comments
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(15 people liked it)
Jun 28, 2011
Alison
rated it:
Two weeks ago, I hadn't heard of Neil Gaiman. I couldn't have picked him out of a line-up. And that's having seen Coraline this year--about which the only thing I knew was that it was a Tim Burton movie that Tim Buron had nothing to do with. But my GR friend Dini recommended The Graveyard Book and here I am, attempting to put together a review.
What I now know about Neil Gaiman...
1. The Graveyard Book is his newest novel which won The Newbery Medal and is "suppose More...
What I now know about Neil Gaiman...
1. The Graveyard Book is his newest novel which won The Newbery Medal and is "suppose More...
12 comments
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(10 people liked it)
Oct 25, 2009
Michael
rated it:
At this point, if Neil Gaiman writes it, I'm going to read it. He's just that good and while "The Graveyard Book" isn't his best novel to date, it's still an enjoyable story and well worth the time.
It's a dark sort of fairy tale, the kind of thing Gaiman has excelled at telling since his days working on "The Sandman." The story follows Nobody Owens, or Bod for short. When his family is killed by the mysterious Jack, Bod escapes into a cemetary where he's adopted More...
It's a dark sort of fairy tale, the kind of thing Gaiman has excelled at telling since his days working on "The Sandman." The story follows Nobody Owens, or Bod for short. When his family is killed by the mysterious Jack, Bod escapes into a cemetary where he's adopted More...
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(10 people liked it)
Dec 17, 2008
RandomAnthony
rated it:
I will be referencing a few comments on Montambo's review thread as I review this book, so you might want to read that thread before I start. Here's a link. I'll wait.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/381...
Are you back? Good. I should start by saying I'm a Gaiman fan and pick up his books with high and perhaps unrealistic expectations that he'll knock it out of the park every time. I worry that he's lost his way the last few years. Both The Anasi Boys and Coralin More...
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/381...
Are you back? Good. I should start by saying I'm a Gaiman fan and pick up his books with high and perhaps unrealistic expectations that he'll knock it out of the park every time. I worry that he's lost his way the last few years. Both The Anasi Boys and Coralin More...
12 comments
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(18 people liked it)
Aug 04, 2009
karen
rated it:
and thats me finishing my last book for this class. and i managed to read it the same day i watched coraline, so im a little gaimaned out right now. this book was enjoyable - it is a little episodic-with-overarching- storyline number about a child living in a graveyard with the dead after a man slaughters his family with a knife. typical newbery fare. there are a few very memorable scenes, and i think i developed a crush on silas, but i have too much of a headache now for anything else. maybe mo
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102 comments
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(33 people liked it)
Nov 18, 2008
Sandi
rated it:
"The Graveyard Book" a novel that reads like a collection of interconnected, chronologically-ordered short stories. The scariest parts aren't the ghosts and ghouls in the graveyard, but the dangers that lurk outside the gates. I hesitate to recommend this for anyone younger than middle-school age. It is an easy read that most children over 8 or 9 could easily comprehend, but the first chapter is very disturbing. It starts out with the murdering of a father, mother and child as they
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Sep 12, 2011
Madeline
rated it: 
"Scarlett said to Bod, 'You're brave. You are the bravest person I know, and you are my friend. I don't care if you are imaginary.' Then she fled down the path back the way they had come, to her parents and the world."
Nobody Owens, Bod for short, first comes to the graveyard as a toddler, having escaped his house after his entire family was brutally and (for the moment) inexplicably murdered. A ghost couple, the Owens, take him in and raise him, along with a guardian named Si More...
Nobody Owens, Bod for short, first comes to the graveyard as a toddler, having escaped his house after his entire family was brutally and (for the moment) inexplicably murdered. A ghost couple, the Owens, take him in and raise him, along with a guardian named Si More...
4 comments
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(6 people liked it)
Aug 15, 2008
Nicola
rated it:
Gaiman, famous for his creepy and often scary tales, Coraline and The Wolves in the Wall, has created in his new novel something that is neither despite its chilling first chapter and spectral cast of characters. This is a story about the power of family -whatever form it comes in - and the potential of a child who is raised with love and a sense of duty. Nobody Owens (Bod) is adopted by a couple of ghosts after narrowly escaping death at the hands of the mysterious man who murdered the rest of
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Sep 13, 2008
Lynn
rated it:
The book opens with a horrifying scene - an assassin systematically murders three member of a sleeping family, including a young child. His true target, an infant, wakened by noise, climbs out of his crib and toddles out of the house and up the hill to the local cemetary, eluding the man named Jack. Two residents of the graveyard find the sleeping child and take him to raise and protect. The Owens name their living son Nobody Owens. It takes a graveyard to raise a child and the denizens of t
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Jan 21, 2009
Seth
rated it:
First, a poorly devised Haiku Review:
Ghosts are fantasy
Carved deep from wishful thinking.
More real than the real.
___________________
Gaiman's The Graveyard Book is new favourite of mine. The story is brisk, the writing whimsical, and the characters well-rendered. Gaiman's work here is a slow-build, with more and more pieces being gradually revealed through seemingly little-related chapters. The Graveyard book comprises a series of small stories about Bod More...
Ghosts are fantasy
Carved deep from wishful thinking.
More real than the real.
___________________
Gaiman's The Graveyard Book is new favourite of mine. The story is brisk, the writing whimsical, and the characters well-rendered. Gaiman's work here is a slow-build, with more and more pieces being gradually revealed through seemingly little-related chapters. The Graveyard book comprises a series of small stories about Bod More...
0 comments
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(8 people liked it)
Sep 28, 2011
BoekenTrol
rated it: 
I got this book through book crossing from a friend, who started a book ring.
There are not many books that give me a hard time reading right from the beginning, but this one definitely did.
I know it is fiction, that it is not real, but this was just too much. A todler (about 18 months) getting out of bed, going down the stairs and finding his way to a nearby graveyard. He is followed by a man 'the man Jack' who sniffs where he has gone. That man killed his parents and older sis More...
There are not many books that give me a hard time reading right from the beginning, but this one definitely did.
I know it is fiction, that it is not real, but this was just too much. A todler (about 18 months) getting out of bed, going down the stairs and finding his way to a nearby graveyard. He is followed by a man 'the man Jack' who sniffs where he has gone. That man killed his parents and older sis More...
Nov 23, 2008
Jessica
rated it:
By special request: the review.
There is no way I could review this book from an impartial or critical perspective. I had been trying and failing to see Neil Gaiman read for something like 18 years when this book came out and I finally did. If my yearning to meet him was a separate entity from myself, it could legally purchase its own cigarettes and sign its own legal documents and view its own pornography. If my admiration for him was an external individual I would no longer have leg More...
There is no way I could review this book from an impartial or critical perspective. I had been trying and failing to see Neil Gaiman read for something like 18 years when this book came out and I finally did. If my yearning to meet him was a separate entity from myself, it could legally purchase its own cigarettes and sign its own legal documents and view its own pornography. If my admiration for him was an external individual I would no longer have leg More...
2 comments
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(4 people liked it)
Oct 05, 2008
Chris
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Nov 13, 2009
Steven
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
0 comments
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(7 people liked it)
Nov 07, 2008
lisa
rated it: 
Disappointing. I first read an excerpt of "The Graveyard Book" as one of the short stories in "M is for Magic", a collection of Gaiman's short stories (4 stars, see review). And, that's just the problem: each chapter of "Graveyard" seems like a short story in itself, well written and no doubt imaginative, but in the context of a novel, only loosely connected to the chapters before and after it. There is little character development, nearly zero build to a climax. Ch
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6 comments
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(21 people liked it)
Feb 13, 2009
Joseph
rated it:
I found myself surprisingly emotional at the end of this book. Maybe I was just tired. Maybe it's been a hard week. Or maybe there's something more than a little profound about humanity's ability to make a family structure out of just about any situation, even in the face of the inevitability that all families must eventually be abandoned.
Gaiman's version of the Jungle Books is hugely entertaining, however you look at it. I suppose I could have done without the main plot involvin More...
Gaiman's version of the Jungle Books is hugely entertaining, however you look at it. I suppose I could have done without the main plot involvin More...
3 comments
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(7 people liked it)
Nov 08, 2011
Sue
rated it:
Wonderful fantasy for all but the youngest children. Recommended for adults who want to simply enjoy themselves. There are a wonderful graveyard, ghosts, an orphan boy, evil searchers and a well written story. What more could anyone want.
11 comments
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(3 people liked it)
Jan 27, 2009
Chrissy
rated it:
A very good book. Bod is an interesting character, and his guardians and teachers are fun and funny. I'm pretty sure nothing Gaiman writes can ever be boring, and this one is no exception. For the record, I'm absolutely over the moon that a book I feel great about recommending to my kids, won the Newbery medal. An author I know, and a book I was going to read anyway, won. Imagine that. The only reason there are not five stars on this review, is that I felt the story was too....well....easy, i gu
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(3 people liked it)
Dec 17, 2008
Jensownzoo
rated it:
This was a nice, cozy typical Neil Gaiman novel (young adult-style) with all the interesting bits, bobs, and characters that he seems to come up with. Would make a very good movie as well...and given the author's history, will likely occur. The two complaints that I have is that the transitions from one part to another (to skip the "boring" bits as Bod grew up) were a little abrupt and there wasn't nearly enough background on the "bad guys" as I am still not certain what th
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2 comments
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(4 people liked it)
Sep 28, 2011
Kinga
rated it:
I am sucker for children's books. There is no way I will give any children's book anything below four stars. Because how can I? They take me back to those days when life was still exciting and reading was just this amazing adventure. I am not saying life is dull now but it's just not the same.
Neil Gaiman writes cool stuff. A boy raised in the graveyard by ghosts? Just how cool is that! I can imagine myself as a 10 year old wandering around the graveyard hoping some nice ghosts would adopt More...
Neil Gaiman writes cool stuff. A boy raised in the graveyard by ghosts? Just how cool is that! I can imagine myself as a 10 year old wandering around the graveyard hoping some nice ghosts would adopt More...
2 comments
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(3 people liked it)
Jan 07, 2011
Misty
rated it:
The graveyard book tells the story of Nobody Owens (called Bod), who escapes to a graveyard as a toddler after his family is murdered. Bod is given the freedom of the graveyard, allowing him to pass freely through the graveyard and learn the ways of the ghost inhabitants who are helping to raise him. This graveyard family teaches Bod how to see at night, to Haunt, Fade and Dreamwalk; they protect him from the outside world, and from the man who killed his family and would like to finish the j
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3 comments
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(3 people liked it)
Oct 20, 2008
John
rated it:
This was a very sweet, mostly harmless book. Reading it, I couldn't help but get the impression that it was being written towards a future screenplay, and if a movie is in the works, I suspect it will be better than this book.
The book deals with a story about an orphaned boy being raised in a graveyard by a host of ghosts, a vampire, and various other sundry macabre spirits and entities.
I had a few concerns about the writing in general.
The first chapter deals More...
The book deals with a story about an orphaned boy being raised in a graveyard by a host of ghosts, a vampire, and various other sundry macabre spirits and entities.
I had a few concerns about the writing in general.
The first chapter deals More...
Aug 11, 2010
Dan
rated it:
I pre-ordered this almost a full year before it came out. It was worth the wait.
At first glance, The Graveyard Book reminded me of A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle. While I'm sure there's some Beagle in its parentage, the afterward mentions the Jungle Book as an inspiration.
Nobody Owens is an orphan boy raised by all the ghosts living (or unliving) in a graveyard. Each chapter in the book takes place in a different year of Bod's young life with his family's More...
At first glance, The Graveyard Book reminded me of A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle. While I'm sure there's some Beagle in its parentage, the afterward mentions the Jungle Book as an inspiration.
Nobody Owens is an orphan boy raised by all the ghosts living (or unliving) in a graveyard. Each chapter in the book takes place in a different year of Bod's young life with his family's More...
3 comments
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(13 people liked it)
Dec 15, 2008
Ellen
rated it:
Neil Gaiman read this book chapter by chapter as he did a recent book tour. What a reader! What a book!
The readings--video and audio-- are posted on Gaiman's website www.mousecircus.com
This is the loveliest tale about a little boy who escapes murder, is adopted by the population of an abandoned graveyard, has a --we presume-- vampire as a guardian, and takes various scary journeys to the land of ghouls, public school, and ancient barrows. Really.
I laughed More...
The readings--video and audio-- are posted on Gaiman's website www.mousecircus.com
This is the loveliest tale about a little boy who escapes murder, is adopted by the population of an abandoned graveyard, has a --we presume-- vampire as a guardian, and takes various scary journeys to the land of ghouls, public school, and ancient barrows. Really.
I laughed More...
Oct 24, 2008
Izlinda
rated it:
I read the chapter "The Witch's Headstone" in Wizards: Magical Tales From the Masters of Modern Fantasy over the summer, as a short story. I was confused if Bod was alive or dead, but reading it in this context, it makes much more sense.
I am tempted to put this book on my "short story" bookshelf as well, since each chapter feels like a short story, but there is a continuous theme running through them (basically Bod growing up and learning things). I thought it More...
I am tempted to put this book on my "short story" bookshelf as well, since each chapter feels like a short story, but there is a continuous theme running through them (basically Bod growing up and learning things). I thought it More...
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