Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book

So, okay, I admit it. Like untold others, I’m a Neil Gaiman fan. The man is nice (I’ve had drinks with him not that he’d remember), has a vivid imagination, and writes a remarkable variety of things — comics, poems, essays, screenplays, adult fantasy, picture books, and kid books — all quite well. So when he began documenting the progress of writing this book I was very curious to read it. Based on what else of his I’d read (notably Coraline which I love to read aloud), I expected chills, darkness, and humor. The Graveyard Book has all of that, but it also has something I wasn’t expecting — a remarkable tenderness and sweet sadness that made it one of the best things of Gaiman’s I’ve ever read.

This is the story of Bod, short for Nobody, a child being raised by a bevy of graveyard inhabitants. Brought there as a baby, Bod, is nurtured by the warm and affectionate Mr. and Mrs. Owens, supervised by the serious Silus, and taught by many others in this unique and lovely community of ghosts and other such beings. Bod has adventures, makes special friends (not all from within the graveyard or fantasy world), and begins to learn about his past and future.

The story has the feeling of Kipling’s Mowgli stories from The Jungle Books — favorites of mine growing up. Silus resembles Bagheera for me; while I’m not so sure if there are others that can be so easily compared a similar charm, humor, warmth, and originality are in both. And most of all, both involve a boy brought to a completely different world and raised lovingly and carefully by the inhabitants of that world.

One of my favorite chapters in the book is “The Hounds of God.” Silus brings a Miss Lupescu to the graveyard to instruct and feed Bod while he is off on a trip. Having already been taught by graveyard inhabitants Letitia Borrows and Mr. Pennyworth (”Compleat Educational System for Younger Gentlemen with Additional Material for those Post Mortem”), Bod doesn’t see the need for new teachers. Miss Lupescu quickly proves otherwise.

“Name the different kinds of people,” said Miss Lupescu. “Now.”

Bod thought for a moment. “The living, ” he said. “Er. The dead.” he stopped. Then, “…Cats? he offered, uncertainly.

Missing Silus and definitely not enjoying either Miss Lupescu’s lessons or cooking, when three strange creatures show up calling themselves the Duke of Westminster, the Honorable Archibald Fitzhugh, and the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Bod eagerly takes off with them. The resulting adventure turns out to be wilder and harsher and more remarkable than he or the reader would expect. Funny, scary, and exciting all at once.

So is the whole book. As well as elegant, gentle, witty, pensive, and moving.

Keep an eye out for it this fall.