The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman
New York: Harper Children's Audio
2008
7 sound discs (ca. 7.5 hours)



First of all, let me tell you that I think I have given up reading Neil Gaiman books myself. If I can find a sound recording with Neil Gaiman reading his own story, I will choose that EVERY time! What a great reader! I always love a good audiobook for my long car rides back and forth to work, but when the author himself (or herself) performs it so well, that is better than anything! We could go into how pleasing the deeper male voice (with British accent) is to female ears, but that doesn't matter here. Others I know who are male also think Neil Gaiman is just a great teller of his own stories. It is definitely worth hearing them in his own voice, if you want to try one of his books.

Spookily titled The Graveyard Book, this is not the scariest book you will ever read. It is, after all, for ages 10 and up and has received the Newbery Award for good reason. It is well-written, interesting, sometimes funny, with interesting characters, both alive and dead, and just plain entertaining. I like it for all of those reasons. It also has some horror elements which I want to discuss here in this blog, since we are talking about scary books. This author is very adept at adding the scary factor to children's books without getting too heavy handed, yet as an older reader (or listener), I can appreciate that there is more to make us afraid than the children might know.

This story, which Gaiman admits is loosely based on The Jungle Book, is about a small boy. One evening a stranger enters his home and killed--yes, in a children's book--the mother, father, and older sister of this small boy. The boy, who is only about two or three at the time, somehow manages to climb out of his crib, go down the long flight of stairs, out the open door, up the street, and into the old graveyard at the top of the hill. This small boy is then taken in and protected by the inhabitants of the graveyard, especially Mister and Mistress Owens who become his parents, and also a gentleman named Silas, about whom we learn more later. The toddler is named "Nobody Owens," and has the run of the graveyard  and he is safe from the man who is still looking for him.

Highgate Cemetery, London (wikimedia commons)

Most of the story is a bildungsroman about the boy Nobody, or Bod for short, and his growing up as the only living boy in the graveyard. His life isn't unhappy, just different. He has friends, tutors, and skills that most living people never learn such as fading, haunting, passing through solid objects, etc. Silas, his guardian and only person who can leave the graveyard, finds food and clothing in the outside world for him. We watch him grow and learn and change as time passes.

One day, Nobody finds a living friend, a little girl named Scarlett who visits the graveyard. Her parents think she is playing with an imaginary friend, and Scarlet isn't sure herself if Nobody is real. Scarlett eventually moves away and Bod is left without another living friend for a time. Scarlett is Bod's only live friend throughout this story, but even she cannot really understand him and his situation.

Behind all that happens is the knowledge that we haven't seen the last of Jack, the man who assassinated Bod's family. We don't know why he did it either, but since Silas and the ghosts are so adamant that Bod never leave the graveyard because this man is still after him, we are on edge, too. There is a close call concerning Jack, when 8-year-old Bod sneaks out of the graveyard to go into the town to sell an ancient brooch recovered from a barrow for a headstone for his witch friend, Lizzie Hempstock, buried outside of the graveyard in unconsecrated ground. The shopkeeper locks up the strange boy in his storeroom, and remembers someone who was looking for a boy like that, a man named Jack. Luckily for Bod and us, Lizzie came to the rescue and Bod gets away.

The true horror of the book takes place near the end of the story. Scarlett returns to the town and discovers that her friend, Nobody, isn't imaginary after all. She encounters him again while assisting another new friend, a Mr. Frost, with some grave rubbings. The two friends are glad to see each other, and Bod is happy to tell somebody his story. Scarlett takes it upon herself to find out more about the murder of his family and asks her friend Mr. Frost for help. Well, it just so happens that Mr. Frost is actually living in the house where this took place! Coincidence, you might ask? Probably not!

The Egyptian Avenue at Highgate Cemetery, London
taken by John Armagh, 12 August 2007 (wikimedia commons)

I don't want to give away all of the story because I really hope you will read this book. Let me just say that Bod is very fortunate to have the friends he does who have taught him the unusual skills he uses to defeat the bad guys in the end. We also learn about other strange and scary creatures in this book, including ghouls, sleers, Hounds of God (otherwise known as werewolves), and vampires. The ghosts are actually the least scary creatures in the story, since the living people Nobody encounters are, for the most part, rather terrifying.

I know the ending is meant to be happy when Bod is finally able to leave the cemetery (you have to read how that comes about), but he is only 15. He hasn't been to a modern school for more than a month or two, and lacks any live family or connections. He hasn't spent any significant time with living people and lacks social skills from modern times, since most of those skills were formed by the long-dead graveyard inhabitants. Silas has given him money, but will he know how to get on? As a mother myself, I'm as worried about him as Mistress Owens now. But Nobody Owens has proven himself to be resourceful, so we can only hope that he will be okay.

Another wonderful part about listening to this story rather than just reading it are the musical interludes on each cd. Béla Fleck, "banjo renegade," has contributed a marvelous rendition of Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre, with Ben Sollee on cello. The banjo is actually a very nice choice for this, duplicating some of the traditional violin sounds, but it also capable of sounding like the "bones," usually played by a xylophone or marimba. Below is a link to part of this recording, which is available on itunes. If you would like to hear the original orchestral Danse Macabre, try this recording. Any afficionado of horror should be familiar with this musical story of Death playing for skeletons in a graveyard until cock crow. It's a magnificent piece of music that is perfect for this story, made even more perfect with Fleck's unusual instrumentation.