The Graveyard Book
WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL 2010
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- €8.49
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- €8.49
Publisher Description
Discover the bewitching, classic children's novel The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, featuring spellbinding illustrations from Chris Riddell
WINNER of the 2010 CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL and the 2009 JOHN NEWBERY MEDAL. ONE OF BBC'S HUNDRED GREATEST CHILDREN'S BOOKS OF ALL TIME
'Every page is crowded with invention, both funny and scary' PATRICK NESS
'A tale of unforgettable enchantment' NEW YORK TIMES
Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a graveyard, raised and educated by ghosts. There, living among the dead, Bod discovers that he possesses remarkable magical powers: he can avoid people's notice, scare them, and even invade their dreams.
There are dangers and adventures for Bod in the graveyard. But it is in the land of the living that the real danger lurks, for it is there that the man Jack lives - and he has sinister plans for Bod...
WINNER OF THE LOCUS YOUNG ADULT AWARD
WINNER OF THE HUGO BEST NOVEL PRIZE
WINNER OF THE BOOKTRUST TEENAGE AWARD
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A lavish middle-grade novel, Gaiman's first since Coraline, this gothic fantasy almost lives up to its extravagant advance billing. The opening is enthralling: "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife." Evading the murderer who kills the rest of his family, a child roughly 18 months old climbs out of his crib, bumps his bottom down a steep stairway, walks out the open door and crosses the street into the cemetery opposite, where ghosts take him in. What mystery/horror/suspense reader could stop here, especially with Gaiman's talent for storytelling? The author riffs on the Jungle Book, folklore, nursery rhymes and history; he tosses in werewolves and hints at vampires and he makes these figures seem like metaphors for transitions in childhood and youth. As the boy, called Nobody or Bod, grows up, the killer still stalking him, there are slack moments and some repetition not enough to spoil a reader's pleasure, but noticeable all the same. When the chilling moments do come, they are as genuinely frightening as only Gaiman can make them, and redeem any shortcomings. Ages 10 up.
