The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman)

The Graveyard Book
Neil Gaiman
HarperCollins
Fiction, MG/YA Fantasy/Horror
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: By the time the little boy came to the old graveyard on the hill, his family was dead. A knifeman had crept into their house and killed them, mother and father and sister, but missed the precocious toddler who had slipped out of his crib for a nighttime adventure. The ghost protected the child from the killer, taking him in and raising him among their crypts and tombstones, teaching him the trick of how to fade away and pass through walls and even walk in dreams... but somewhere out there, beyond the gates, the killer still waits to finish off the last loose thread of what had been a perfect job. Nobody Owens may feel more at home among the ghosts than among people, but he is still a living boy - a living boy who is growing up, and who will someday have to venture forth and confront the threat awaiting him.

REVIEW: I'm coming off a middling reading month and wanted to start March on better footing. Even when Gaiman misses for me (and I do find him a bit hit-and-miss as an author), he at least offers interesting ideas. So I gave this one a chance. Happily, it lived up to the high praises.
The story has more than a few nods to Kipling's The Jungle Books, only instead of an orphaned boy raised by beasts, the child Nobody (or "Bod" as he's often called) is raised by the dead, as well as a few protectors who aren't specifically alive or dead but something else. With ghostly parents in the Owenses and a protector in the peculiar Silas, Bod learns the ways of the graveyard and the dead and has several adventures growing up in a world beyond humans, including encounters with mischievous and malicious ghouls and the discovery of a cursed treasure and its protector... and, like Mowgli, the predator who first tried to kill him as a little boy remains his chief threat as he grows up. Though Silas, the ghosts, and other teachers and encounters can help prepare him for the inevitable confrontation, he must ultimately face the man alone. Unlike Mowgli, Bod is a more sympathetic protagonist, not quite so obnoxious as Kipling's foundling. He loves his graveyard home and ghostly companions, even the vampiric Silas, but also feels the pull of living people and a growing, insatiable curiosity about the dangerous world beyond the graveyard gates. Those who love him, dead and undead alike, can only do so much to protect him; it is the nature of boys to grow up, and the nature of the living to set forth and live, even those who are raised by ghosts. Being a story set in a graveyard (and being a story by Neil Gaiman), there's a dark undercurrent to the tale, one that grows more pronounced as Bod grows older and the influence of a childhood among the dead becomes more apparent, especially as he begins to spend time among ordinary people. The plot starts out more episodic, the young boy's adventures and lessons slowly building to a bigger tale as the reason his family was targeted (and the reason Bod is still a target after all these years, as well as why Silas felt compelled to offer his guardianship) becomes apparent. The finale brings together most of what he learned, sometimes in harsh lessons, along the way for a decently satisfying conclusion that nevertheless leaves threads danging for potential spinoffs or sequels. (I'm ignorant enough not to know off the top of my head if any of those threads have been followed up on, or lead from previous writings.) Also, once again, Gaiman does an impressive job narrating without mumbling or whispering or otherwise being hard to understand (a trait I very much appreciate). I consider myself decently entertained.

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