Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book won last year's Newberry Award, and for originality I readily agree with the choice. The story opens with a serial killer slashing the father, mother and older child in a British household. The baby, Nobody Owens or Bod for short, escapes and wanders into a nearby graveyard where he is raised by the resident ghosts. The first half of the book I found tedious and episodic as Bod has adventures with all manner of evil creatures. The second half, where Bod goes after the man who killed his family, was tighter and thus, IMHO, far more interesting.
For the most part the book is well-written and held my attention far more than other books by Gaiman that I've read. Specifics for why:
1) I like writers who play with words. Bod arrives at the graveyard and wakes up from a nap. He's surrounded by graveyard residents. "It (Bod) stared around it, taking in the faces of the dead, and the mist, and the moon. Then it looked at Silas. Its gaze did not flinch. It looked grave." (page 25)
2) I learned a new (at least to me) meaning of the word "amble" A horse "came ambling up the side of the hill. The pounding of its hooves could be heard before it was seen, …" (page 30) To me "amble" has always meant a gentle pace, a soft and quiet walk. So how could ambling cause hooves to pound? Bad word choice, I thought. Then: Maybe not, Martha. Perhaps you should look the word up. So I did. Sure enough, when talking about horses, an "amble" is a specific, measured gait. Our language never ceases to amaze me. Are there people who have mastered knowing everything about it?
3) In the I-wish category: Bod learns he will be taught to read. "He imagined a future in which he could read everything, in which all stories could be opened and discovered." (page 46) Think maybe lots of four- or five-year olds think that way? If so, what have we killed in them by the time they reach thirteen?
4) A not-so-pleasant ghost asks Bod if he can imagine "how it feels to be more important than kings or queens … to be sure of it, in the same way that people are more important than Brussels sprouts?" (page 81) Part of me thinks, "Cool analogy." Another part wonders, "Are we?"
5) Silas, the caretaker of the graveyard (and mentioned above), says, "People want to forget the impossible. It makes their world safer." (page 289) Let's add to "the impossible," the unfamiliar, the different, or the unknown, and we could be talking about today's reaction to health reform. IMHO, of course.
6) "Bod ate his pizza with his fingers and enthusiasm." (page 290) Cool juxtaposition. Again, IMHO.
7) One graveyard resident says, "Truly, life is wasted on the living." (page 300) Wonder if that's true. The older I get, the more I understand that youth is, indeed, wasted on the young.
Guess I should end with a recommendation. With all I'd heard about The Graveyard Book and its winning of the Newberry, I was disappointed. But I may have set my expectations too high. Like Pride and Prejudice and Ghouls, The Graveyard Book has an amazing premise—and it has pen and ink drawings—but at least I finished The Graveyard Book. That does make them different.
