Title and author: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman with illustrations by Dave McKean.

Genre: Fantasy fiction suitable for teens but equally enjoyable for adults.

What led you to pick up the book? It had ‘Neil Gaiman’ written on the cover.

Summarize the plot without revealing the ending . One night a man named Jack breaks into a house and kills an entire family…nearly. A toddler escapes and winds up in the cemetery at the end of the road, where he is taken in and raised by the resident Dead.

This is a Graveyard Book mousepad from Neverwhere.net. It’s designed by Kendra Stout and it’s neat.

What did you like most? Learning what ‘life’ is like for the Dead and what abilities they have. His relationship with Silas, his father figure, was touching. I also liked that the reader was left to work out the… race? of one characters-Gaiman knows his readers are intelligent.

What did you dislike? That there wasn’t enough of it.

Graveyard Book illustration by Dave McKean

Thoughts on the main character : Each chapter has Bod (short for Nobody Owens) a few years older so we get to see his progression towards adulthood, which felt true.

Share a favourite scene. The scene beyond the ghoul gate (Ghulheim) was particularly inventive-it put me in mind of Neverwhere. The bizarre physics and characters were pure Gaiman. The danse macabray chapter was great fun, as well. There was a suspense as to where the on Earth the chapter was going and why.

Ghulheim — (poss. by Simon Dalton)

Opinion on the ending. It worked and didn’t bring a tear to my eye at all. Nope.

Overall rating: 10/10. If you’re a Gaiman fan and haven’t read it because it’s ‘for kids’ or something, read it anyway.