The Graveyard Book

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Manufacturer: Neil Gaiman
Brand: Young Adult Fantasy Fiction, Children’s Literature
Brew: Hardback
Steeping Time:
Tea Service: Book Club
Strength:

Synopsis: Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a perfectly normal boy. Well, he would be perfectly normal if he didn’t live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor the world of the dead.

There are dangers and adventures for Bod in the graveyard: the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer; a gravestone entrance to a desert that leads to the city of ghouls; friendship with a witch, and so much more.

But it is in the land of the living that real danger lurks, for it is there that the man Jack lives and he has already killed Bod’s family.

We chose this as our book club read for October 2021. It sounded fun and spooky, just what the season calls for.

The Graveyard Book follows a young boy who has met rather unfortunate circumstances. His entire family has been murdered, but lucky for the toddler, he wanders out through the open front door and into the nearby graveyard, escaping the killer completely. There, the resident ghosts agree to raise and protect him. Not knowing his first name, they name him Nobody, Bod for short.

Even though little Bod now has parents, there is still another dilemma; they can’t leave the graveyard. Since they are buried within the graveyard, they cannot leave in order to get food and supplies for the living baby that they now care for. Enter Silas, a resident of the graveyard that comes and goes as he wishes, not dead but not quite alive either. He agrees to be the boys guardian, and if he has to leave, he promises to find a replacement in his absence.

Throughout The Graveyard Book, we get snapshots of Bod’s life with his ghostly family.

The timeline jumps forward in years as the chapters progress, so we see Bod at five, then eight, then eleven, and so on. Along the way we get to meet many of the ghosts and see how they, well, ‘live’, so to speak. His ghostly parents, Mr. and Mrs. Owens, are so lovely. After a lifetime of not being to have a child of their own, their wish is granted well over a hundred years after their deaths. I find their joy one of the most beautiful things about this book.

As Bod grows, he learns the ways of the ghosts and the cemetery and makes plenty of ghostly friends. But he also learns that something ancient lives under the hill, gateways can be opened, and it isn’t safe for him outside of the graveyard walls. Whoever killed his family is still looking for him, hoping to finish the job.

As someone who finds a stroll through a cemetery one of the most enjoyable pastimes, I knew I’d love this book.

I only wish that 11-year-old me could have had the chance to read it. I’d have fallen into this book headfirst at that age. I still enjoyed it as an adult, but I craved more. I wanted more details of the adventures and I wanted more information about the ghosts, especially Liza, a witch that is buried outside of the cemetery in Potter’s Field.

At 11, I wouldn’t have cared so much about those details. I’d have wanted them, yes, but I’d have been content to invent them myself while wandering through our own local cemetery.

I thought Neil Gaiman did an incredible job at painting a setting that I could fully imagine. I could feel the foggy mist on my skin, hear the rustle of tall grass in the wind, and feel the leaves crunch underfoot as I explored his beautiful world. This is my first Neil Gaiman read and it definitely won’t be my last. I also really enjoyed the illustrations at the beginning of every chapter. It was just a little extra something to help bring Bod and his world to life.

The Graveyard Book is an easy, quick read. I think most ages would enjoy it, especially the younger generations who love spooky stories. At that age, I’d have spent months daydreaming about living in a graveyard with ghosts, and it would have been magical.

Have you read The Graveyard Book? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought about it! Want to read it for yourself? Click here to get a copy of your own.
Cheers,
Lydia