Laurie Lail
When the tips of trees become tinged in
warm colors, and the mornings turn cool, I begin to fancy a good ghostly story,
and one of the best is a story I read to my son when he was ten, The Grave Yard Book written by Neil
Gaiman and published by Harper Collins
It isn’t only a frightful plot woven from
suspenseful scenes, though it is a story about a boy who is orphaned when his
family was murdered by the man Jack. The boy barely escapes the murderer, wanders
into a graveyard and is raised by ghosts.
It isn’t only drama though the boy, Bod
(short for Nobody), grows up before the reader and struggles with his love for
his ghostly family and friends (who are from various decades, stations, and
deaths), his trust and admiration for his vampire guardian, Silas, and his
desire to be out there, beyond the graveyard with the living where Scarlet (his
only living friend) lives.
It isn’t only a mystery, though it’s laced
with the man Jack always looking for Bod so he can finish the job of killing
all in the Dorian family, but why does he need to kill them all? And what does
Silas learn about the man Jack? And why won’t he tell Bod?
It isn’t only a story of mystical fantasy
though the boy visits realms even stranger and more dangerous than the
graveyard.
The Graveyard Book is
earnestness and evil, family, friends, and fiends, earthiness and otherness, benevolence and suspense, the living and the dead swirled in one pot, one scene bubbling into
another and creating the magically enticing oddness, and bumpy delightful
eeriness that is Gaiman’s trademark. If you’re in the mood for the macabre, The Graveyard Book will not disappoint.
If you have a kid to read it to, even better.
No comments:
Post a Comment