Coraline (Audio book)

by Neil Gaiman (Goodreads author!), Dawn French

published	August 5th 2002 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
binding	Audio Cassette
isbn	0747560285 (isbn13: 9780747560289)
ebook
description	Despite being mostly known for his fantastical graphic novels and adult fiction, Neil Gaiman's first book for children is everything that you would ex...more [close] Despite being mostly known for his fantastical graphic novels and adult fiction, Neil Gaiman's first book for children is everything that you would expect from such a massive imagination as his. It's special and wonderful and very weird indeed. Described by some as the new Alice in Wonderland, Coraline is actually more bizarre than that, much more frightening and its modest length definitely adds to the book's undiluted potency. Shortly after moving into an old house with strange tenants above and below, Coraline discovers a big, carved, brown wooden door at the far corner of the drawing room. And it is locked. Curiosity runs riot in Coraline's mind and she unlocks the door to see what lies behind it. Disappointingly, it opens onto a brick wall. Days later, after exploring the rest of the house and garden, Coraline returns to the same mysterious door and opens it again. This time, however, there is a dark hallway in front of her. Stepping inside, the place beyond has an eerie familiarity about it. The carpet and wallpaper are the same as in her flat. The picture hanging on the wall is the same. Almost. Strangest of all, her mum and dad are there too. Only they have buttons for eyes and seem more possessive than normal. It's a twisted version of her world that is familiar, and yet sinister. And matters get even more surreal for Coraline when her "other" parents seem reluctant to let her leave. Her attempted escape from this nightmare alternative reality sees Coraline experience a chilling series of ever more bizarre encounters. Some are plainly odd, others disturbingly spooky and together they combine to form an immensely readable story. It's like all the best bits of the Goosebumps books condensed into 160 pages. A unique reading experience guaranteed. (Ages 10 and over)--John McLay [close]
date added	05-18-07 edit book

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Chris rated it:

(review of isbn 0061139378)

08/12/08

Read in August, 2008

It's a strange sort of place into which Coraline and her parents have recently moved An old house with a pair of washed up actresses on the ground floor, who go by the names of Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, and a cracked old fellow in the attic who's failing in his attempt to stage a mouse circus. It seems the mice won't sing the songs he's written for them. Coraline meets these people, for the most part, because her parents are very adept at ignoring her. Coraline's parents are busy parents...more It's a strange sort of place into which Coraline and her parents have recently moved An old house with a pair of washed up actresses on the ground floor, who go by the names of Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, and a cracked old fellow in the attic who's failing in his attempt to stage a mouse circus. It seems the mice won't sing the songs he's written for them. Coraline meets these people, for the most part, because her parents are very adept at ignoring her. Coraline's parents are busy parents. They work on computers, and so stay at home, but they don't have much time for Coraline. They push her aside, tell her to read, to play with her toys, to explore but not too far, anything, it seems, so that she will let them alone to their work. On a rainy day she walks into her father's study and his eyes never stray from the computer, he only mumbles to her to go and count things: the windows, the doors, things that are blue.

Coraline likes to explore things. A useful trait for a lonely girl. She's wandered all over the grounds of her strange, new home. Through the chestnut groves and across the decaying, abandoned tennis courts. She's dropped rocks into a deep, dark well and counted the seconds before the splash. As such, she didn't say no to her father's suggestion. She counted the blue things, the windows, and doors. One door interested her more than the others. A locked door, which Coraline's mother says leads nowhere. Coraline doesn't believe this, despite her mother taking a small, exasperated pleasure in unlocking the door to show her daughter the very solid, brick wall behind it.

But of course, it does go somewhere. Such are the rules in story--doors that seem to lead nowhere end up taking you to the most interesting places. For Coraline, the world on the other side of the door is a lot like the world she came from, but different. There's the same rooms, the same furniture. The same people too. A kooky, man in the attic. The actresses down below, though here, they're working--performing on stage for an audience of dogs. Even her parents are there, though there's something strange about them, too. For one they pay attention to her. For another, they're a little too pale and their fingers a bit long. Also, their eyes have been removed and replaced with shiny, black buttons. But they do love Coraline. They really, really, do.

Coraline is a scary book. Not axe-murderer scary, or werewolf scary. No, Gaiman's after a terror more subtle--the kind of scuttling fear you feel when walking home alone at night, or when passing by and glancing into a mirror, you don't recognize yourself or the room behind you. That cold sticky feeling that squiggles in your stomach when you feel something's off. For Coraline, the world beyond the door promises love, and for a time, its skewed sort of reality entices her. She likes to explore after all, and this world offers up strange wonders for such girls as Coraline. But the more time she spends in this other world, the more her stomach gets that squiggly, wrong feeling. She finds children like her locked away and forgotten behind a mirror, rats serenade her with songs of feasting. And eventually, Coraline recognizes that, though, the other mother truly does seem to love her, it's a love that’s as twisted as everything else in this other world.

Gaiman’s writing has a warmth to it. He has compassion for all his characters, even the monsters. One gets the feelng, for example, that the other mother makes a habit of this sort of thing, collecting the souls of ignored and forgotten children--children who long for love so much they might overlook little things like buttons for eyes or fingers a touch too long--only to herself, after a time, forget about them as well. Both Coraline and the other Mother long to love and to be loved. No one wants to be left alone in the dark. But that’s what Coraline does to us, the readers, it leads us, rather warmly, down into the dark, cold places. It reminds us what it is to be small and alone, afraid of the dark and hungry for love. It’s a wonderful, quiet, affecting sort of story and it deserves to be read out loud and shared with someone you love.
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Shannon rated it:

(review of isbn 0380807343)

07/01/08

bookshelves: 2008, fantasy, horror, kids, ya

Read in July, 2008

Finally, a Neil Gaiman book I like! If I'd read this when I was, say, ten (not that it had been written when I was ten), I would have loved it. Or younger. Or older. I think Gaiman should write more fiction for children, and less of this adult stuff he keeps doing. I didn't like Stardust at all, really, and Neverwhere not much better, mainly because of the self-conscious, mocking tone he uses, like he's embarrased. Here, he's writing for children, younger than Young Adult, and the ...more Finally, a Neil Gaiman book I like! If I'd read this when I was, say, ten (not that it had been written when I was ten), I would have loved it. Or younger. Or older. I think Gaiman should write more fiction for children, and less of this adult stuff he keeps doing. I didn't like Stardust at all, really, and Neverwhere not much better, mainly because of the self-conscious, mocking tone he uses, like he's embarrased. Here, he's writing for children, younger than Young Adult, and the embarrasment's gone. Writing for an older audience, Gaiman seems to expect ridicule and derision, and so tries to fob it off with a "hey, I'm just joking, I'm a mature man too" kind of tone. He lacks what Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett manage to pull off: wit, silliness and playful antics with complete confidence.

That's my basic impression of those two books, anyway.

With Coraline, though, there's humour but it's dark and, at times, obvious at a child's level. The story is about a little girl, Coraline, who moves into a flat in an old sub-divided house with her parents, who work from home. School hasn't started yet and she's bored. There's a door in one of the rooms that opens onto a wall of bricks - until one day it opens onto a dark passage. Going through, she finds herself back inside her flat, only it's not quite the same: her other mother and her other father have black button eyes, and the haughty neighbourhood cat talks, and the crazy old man upstairs has trained rats instead of mice, and the two old ladies who used to be stage actresses, perform to an audience of dogs who eat nothing but chocolate.

It gets scary when Coraline's other mother wants her to stay and sew black buttons into her eyes. She manages to escape, only to find that her real parents are missing, trapped in the mirror it seems. Coraline must return to the other side and free not just her own real parents but the souls of three trapped children.

Suitably dark and scary, even I, at 28, was all tense and scared by the other mother. The atmosphere is excellent, the tone just right: a blend of dark humour and suspense. The illustrations are good too, especially those of the other mother - certainly aided in raising the scare factor a notch or two. There were a couple of inconsistencies in the plot, namely the locked door - Coraline's mother, after unlocking it and showing Coraline the wall of bricks, doesn't lock it again and says there's no need, since it doesn't go anywhere. But when Coraline decides to open it again she first gets her mother's keys and then unlocks the door. Maybe a kid wouldn't notice (I would've), but things like that stick out pretty obviously to me and speaks of haphazard editing.

All in all, though, it's a great story, one I can see kids loving and re-reading, but it can also be enjoyed by adults, like Ella Enchanted (I would judge the target audience of Coraline to be a bit younger, but there are no rules in the world of reading). I had high hopes at first that it hadn't been Americanised - it's set in London, and while "flat", "railway" and "jam", for instance, are all there, there's also "pajamas", "theater", "color" and so on - okay, so that's mostly spelling, and he does live in the US now, but still. It was disappointing. It's always disappointing....less

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5 comments

Jennifer rated it:

(review of isbn 0061139378)

08/04/07

Read in August, 2007

This book is delightfully creepy with a young heroine that I found very empowering. Each time I finish a book geared for younger readers I'm reminded of just how much elasticity we lose as we age. In Coraline, at one point a child easily accepts and adapts to an abrupt shift into a two-dimensional world, whereas an adult would feel more than a little insane suspending logic and flexibly adjusting to previously unreal circumstances. Somewhere throughout the years we do away with "c...more

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Robert rated it:

(review of isbn 0061139378)

01/21/08

bookshelves: cle-pub-lib, finished

Read in April, 2004

Neil Gaiman, Coraline (Harper, 2002)

I'm not exactly sure what to say about this minor gem. It's a kids' book, but not really a kids' book. It's a fantasy/horror novel, but not a fantasy/horror novel. It has minor similarities to about a hundred books to be found over the ages, both children's and adult, but nothing strong enough to be called an influence (at least, not one that wears its heart on its sleeve). About the best thing I can come up with would be a much darker version of Roald Dahl'...more

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P. Cookie rated it:

(review of isbn 0380807343)

07/26/07

Read in July, 2005

I have signed copy of this book. Had it signed by Neil at the Rockwell Tent during his book signing tour in the Philippines.

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I am done reading Coraline. Well, it was indeed a children's book but it was just as equally interesting. After all, there is a kid in each of us, right? Hehe...

Coraline is pronounced as [korulIn].

Coraline is somewhat a modern-day Alice and her wonderland was that of a darker version.

The book takes your imagination to a wild rollercoaster ride....more

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1 comments

Kurtis rated it:

(review of isbn 0061139378)

12/20/07

Coraline is the first book of Neil Gaiman's I read. It’s a nice introduction to his dark humor and vivid imagination, although being a short novel it does not have the fully developed characters I loved so much in Anansi Boys and Stardust. Which isn’t to say it doesn’t have interesting characters–the characters are great and make the book; they are just more caricatures, known by their peculiarities.

Coraline is a young girl living in a new apartment. Like all classic apartment-house ...more

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Tracey rated it:

(review of isbn 0061139378)

12/19/07

bookshelves: libraryread

Read in January, 2004

After seeing oodles of recommendations, and considering Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors, I finally checked this YA novel out from the library and finished it in an hour or so.

A dark fairy-tale about Coraline, an adventurous & very bored girl who feels ignored by her parents and dismissed by her neighbors. She discovers a door in their flat that now leads to an alternate version of the house, and meets the "other mother&q...more

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Jessica rated it:

(review of isbn 0380807343)

05/29/07

bookshelves: read-in-2007

Read in January, 2007

"The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring."

I really enjoyed this clever little novella, but then again, I enjoy mostly everything from Gaiman. This is a story of young Coraline (though often mistakenly, and to her despair, called Caroline) – a bored and curious girl who longs for an adventure. As is expected from Gaiman, the story contains comically eccentric characters, a talking cat, a sudden dark twist to an otherwise ordinary day, and one very stubborn main charac...more

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Catherine rated it:

(review of isbn 0061139378)

08/20/08

Coraline by Neil Gaiman was a book I ran randomly across a couple months ago and thought it looked interesting. Then Melissa asked me if I had heard about it a couple weeks ago and my interest was renewed. So I picked it up at the library last week and read it today.

I read half of it out loud to Scott who was busy flirting with Coraline's picture on the cover. I'm glad I did b/c this was a creepy book. I think I would have stopped had I not been reading it out loud in a happy and expr...more

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Speedtribes rated it:

(review of isbn 0061139378)

09/24/07

bookshelves: fantasy, horror

I have only ever read one other Neil Gaiman work before-- the cowritten 'Good Omens' which I had found enjoyable, but not nearly as amazing as his reputation hypes him up to be. I was hesitant about Coraline when I heard it was written for children. I wondered whether he'd try to simplify his writing, make the story more childish? But I picked it up anyway. At first, I had to get used to the rhythms of his writing-- the sentences were a bit shorter than I preferred, and the writing did seem a li...more

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Lily rated it:

(review of isbn 0061139378)

08/22/07

bookshelves: childrens-ya-books

Read in August, 2007

this was my introduction to Neil Gaiman, and i loved this book. it's creepy and sinister, and its also clever and funny. so many imaginative details and images that would seem randomly thrown together in the hands of a less talented writer, but somehow make sense in the universe Gaiman has created here.

but what makes the story so memorable and wonderful for me lies in so much more than the fantastical, creepy alternate world - what i loved the most about the story is that it resonates with ...more

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Karen rated it:

(review of isbn 0380807343)

08/17/08

bookshelves: childrens, fantasy, fiction

Read in August, 2008

I'm a little confused by this book. On the one hand, I found the story compelling. I read it very quickly because the story was quite gripping. On the other hand, I was puzzled by it. On the cover, one of the reviewers compares the book to the Narnia books. However, those books were wonderful allegories. I cannot see any allegorical value in this story.

In the book, a little girl who lives in an apartment with her parents is intrigued by a locked door that opens to the bricked off ent...more

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Kirsten rated it:

(review of isbn 0061139378)

01/29/08

bookshelves: own, read-pre-12-07

Read in October, 2006

I decided to revisit it after I got into a discussion on the LJ community 50bookchallenge about whether it was appropriate for younger (8-10 year old) readers. My feeling was that it was a pretty creepy book, but that I'd be comfortable handing it to a kid whose reading level was fairly mature. After the discussion, I wanted to go back and see if my original impressions were still accurate.

I think they are. This book has some super creepy moments, and I probably wouldn't recommend it to kids...more

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Lisa rated it:

(review of isbn 0380977788)

06/25/08

bookshelves: bookclubs-secondary, childrens-and-ya, fiction, gr-author, reviewed

Read in June, 2008

I read this for Goodreads’ (Young Adult) YA Book Club but I do believe this is written for the 8-12 age group. I would have had nightmares had I read this at that age or even as an adolescent.

Hansel and Gretel was the fairy tale that frightened me more than any other, and while this book turned out to be not so much about abandonment exactly, it was reminiscent of it and I could get in touch with that same feeling of dread.

I loved Coraline’s cleverness and almost too unbelievable exa...more

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10 comments

Darlingmisty rated it:

(review of isbn 0061139378)

05/28/08

bookshelves: horror, juvenile-ya, sci-fi-fantasy

Read in May, 2008

This is an interesting book because I can honestly say I haven't read it before. I know that sounds obvious, but with kid's books, they can all blend together and lack originality, and this did not. I think that was partly because Gaiman didn't try to hold back and keep it gently creepy, kid appropriate. This is a genuinely creepy book, with a girl who is held hostage basically by her "other mother" who is certainly not human, and wants to sew black buttons into her eyes, and who de...more

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Julie rated it:

(review of isbn 0061139378)

05/02/08

bookshelves: middle-school-ya-books

Read in January, 2005

recommends it for: middle school aged students

This book was truly creepy. It was extremely suspenseful, dealing with an alternate reality where the protagonist's parents are kidnapped and the souls of children have been trapped inside of marbles, although she does not discover this until later. Young adults who enjoy feeling disturbed or creeped-out would like this book. The characters are very interesting and Coraline is well-rounded as is the character of her "other mother". All of the characters in the book are interesting and ...more

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Catherine rated it:

(review of isbn 0061139378)

07/24/08

Read in July, 2008

I'm intrigued by this notion of the 'world between worlds' ever since reading "The Magician's Nephew" by C.S. Lewis. I never realized before how esstential it is for the propelling of a story.
The world between worlds in Coraline is exceptionally brilliant because of it's eerie simplicity, a concept that is rife throughout the story. This is also my biggest critique of the story. Although Gaiman deserves praise for his ability to invent and guide us through such a positively frightfu...more

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Erin rated it:

(review of isbn 0380977788)

07/03/07

bookshelves: yafiction

Read in November, 2006

Coraline is a teenage girl who recently moved with her parents into a house. As her parents seem too preoccupied to bother with her, Coraline takes it upon herself to go exploring. During her exploration, she discovers a door that supposedly leads into a brick wall. She soon realizes that there is more to this door than meets the eye.

She is able to go through the door one day, and is transported into a parallel universe. Everything appears somewhat as it was on the other side; yet there ...more

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Jennyanydots rated it:

(review of isbn 0380977788)

06/14/08

Read in January, 2004

recommended to Jennyanydots by: my auntie soozy!
recommends it for: intelligent children that can handle creepy. and that are tired of the classics.

my auntie soozy (hello out there!) nicely demanded an autographed Coraline from neil gaiman (bless his name) for my siblings and me. his autograph includes a scrawled sketch of a rat, fanged and wormtailed. needless to say, i was instantly hooked.

Coraline is deliciously eerie and fiendishly good. gaiman melds a child's world with the dark and the fantastical, and proves they were never far apart. even before she enters the "other flat", coraline's world is infused with darkness. i...more