The graveyard book

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Neil Gaiman: The graveyard book (2009, Thorndike Press)

English language

Published April 29, 2009 by Thorndike Press.

ISBN:
978-1-4104-1441-0
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(3 reviews)

After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.

41 editions

Review of 'The graveyard book' on 'Goodreads'

Starts off as a thriller, the assassin striking in the middle of the night. Hints are given that killing off this particular family is not a random act, so we get the idea that the child who survives is somehow special.

While this sounds like the start of the Harry Potter mythos, it is instead from a young adult novel published some 10 years later. The Graveyard Book is an excellent work, combining history and mythology, ghosts and prophecy into a growing up and coming of age story. Each of the characters here seems to have a solid backstory, though only a few are explored in the course of this novel.

Each chapter sees the main character grow a few years older, and each is almost a story unto itself. Each of Bod's trials help him to learn and grow, leading to a long final chapter and confrontation.

I won't …

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Subjects

  • Large type books
  • Dead -- Fiction
  • Supernatural -- Fiction
  • Cemeteries -- Fiction
  • Orphans -- Fiction
  • Large type books

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