The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a delightful book, although I feel kind of silly using that as a description when the subject of the book is a graveyard.  It's the story of a baby boy who crept out of his home when the sinister man Jack sneaked into his house and killed his parents and older sister.  He finds his way to a graveyard where the ghosts of the inhabitants decide to give him sanctuary.  A couple, long deceased and childless, agree to raise him as their own and, because he is human, Silas...who can go between worlds, agrees to be his guardian.  They give the boy the name Nobody Owens, because no body knows his name, and he has the freedom of the graveyard.  He knows all the spirits who choose to be known and he even knows a witch, some ghouls and an even more unsavory specter. He is able to walk through the stones and converse with any of the ghosts who care to talk to him.  He even learns to fade into the background so that he is invisible.

His life is happy in the graveyard.  He is taught history from the ghost who were actually alive through the various eras and he learns to read, although there aren't a lot of books. From time to time, he goes out of the graveyard, and even went to school for a while, but he puts himself at risk because the man Jack has sworn he would kill him.

We've been using this for homeschool and my granddaughter has been creating stories for people in an imaginary graveyard.  While a little ghoulish, it has been very interesting and offers an endless source of creative writing topics.  This is one of the best books I've read in a long time!


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