The Graveyard Book

By Neil Gaiman
Illustrated by Dave Mckean



"It takes a whole village to raise a child," or so the old proverb goes. But when it comes to Nobody Owens, instead of a village, it takes a graveyard. When Nobody (who goes by Bod for short) was the sole survivor of an attack on his family at the tender age of 18 months, the residents of the local graveyard took it upon themselves to raise him. Bod grows up in a strange world of limbo - still living, he learns the habits, knowledge, and magic of the graveyard. And his life is anything but ordinary - he meets ghouls and witches, and his personal mentor is a vampire. Readers watch as he tries to make friends and fit in at school (which of course is difficult, considering the differences that exist between Bod and "normal" children). Eventually, he confronts "the man named Jack" who murdered his entire family when he was a baby, and after that we see his attempt at living in the "real world."

I also really like the illustrations of this book. Mckean's wonderful hand-drawn artwork is at the beginning of every chapter. And though this book definitely involves a lot of reading, I think the illustrations add a lot to readers' interpretations and mental images regarding the story.

This Newberry Medal-winning book opens our eyes and our imaginations to what it might be like to be raised by the dead. Not only that, but through the entirety of Bod's adventures, we learn just how wonderful it is to actually be alive. Though this book has "mature" themes, I think it is a wonderful book for upper elementary aged readers.

There is another great aspect of this story. Though the book itself forms the entirety of Bod's story, each chapter can be read alone as an independent story. Gaiman, who wrote the book this way on purpose, ended up going on tour, reading entire chapters at a time to his audience. He followed each chapter by an extended Q&A session. And, not only that, but he posted all of these readings online for everyone to see. Not only can we buy and read the book, but through this use of technology we can see and hear the author read the entire book to us. What a great idea for a class read-aloud!