The Graveyard Book

by Neil Gaiman

The Man Jack has a job to do, but he fails on one small point. That small point is an infant boy who manages to escape Jack’s murderous intentions by crawling his way into a local graveyard. The inhabitants of the graveyard, being dead and all, aren’t sure what to do with the little tyke. Mr. and Mrs. Owens, a couple who never had children when they were alive, decide that they want to raise the child as their own. Some graveyard residents think it would be wonderful to have a living boy amongst them. Others do not. After all, how could they acquire the things like food and clothing that a living boy would need? That’s where Silas comes in. Silas straddles the world between the living and the dead and agrees to be the boy’s guardian. Silas can come and go and make sure that the boy has everything he needs. The first thing he needs, though, is a name. The residents debate who among them the child is most like, but then decide that he is like nobody but himself, so they call him Nobody, or Bod for short.

The story follows Bod as he spends his childhood growing up in the graveyard, learning all of the little graveyard tricks and making friends with all of the ghost children who live there. Those children stay the same age, but Bod continues to get older. As he ages he makes friends with some of the teenage ghosts, including the ghost of the witch who lives in the forgotten part of the cemetery. He’s going to need all the friends he can get because The Man Jack is still out there, waiting to finish the job he started years before.

The Graveyard Book is a very charming story that is a little dark, but not too scary. It’s part ghost story, part mystery and Gaiman puts enough twists in the tale to keep you guessing until the end. Come in to the library and check it out!