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The Graveyard Book von Neil Gaiman |
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Vorgestellt von: Lilja-June (Gryffindor)
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Allgemeines zum Buch The Graveyard Book und dem Autor Neil Gaiman
The Graveyard Book is a novel by the British author Neil Gaiman. It´s a book suitable for readers of all ages, as it is called. The book deals with fantasy elements, like most of Gaiman´s works, and because it can also be quite scary in some parts, I would recommend it for readers ten years old or older.
Inhaltsbeschreibung zum Buch The Graveyard Book von Neil Gaiman
The main character of the story is a boy called Nobody Owens. He´s a normal boy… except that everything around him is not. Nobody – or Bod as most people call him – lives in a graveyard. He has lived there since he was about one year old. Bod´s parents and his sister were murdered and little Bod seeked refuge in the graveyard close to their house. The ghosts, first of all his adoptive parents, the Owenses, took him in and gave him the freedom of the graveyard. Silas, who is neither dead nor alive, agrees to be his guardian and to look after Bod as well.
Bod never leaves the graveyard, for it is the outside world that is far more dangerous for him than living together with ghosts. Outside, there is still the man Jack. The man who killed his family and whose job won´t be completed until he has killed Bod as well.
But those are things that young Bod doesn´t know about. In his peculiar home, he struggles with the same problems that any other child would have… he has to learn his letters and has various teachers among the ghosts. But he also learns things that only ghosts can teach you: fading, dream-walking or haunting.
Strange things happen in the graveyard: When Bod is five he discovers a very old grave together with his friend Scarlett, where a weird thing called the Sleer guards some old artefacts, a treasure, it says, that once belonged to his master. Sadly, his only living friend leaves when her parents move away only a bit later. Bod also meets Liza, the witch, who doesn´t have a headstone and he goes to get one for her. He almost gets dragged to Gûlheim by the Ghouls and can only flee with the help of Miss Lupescu, who is actually a Hound of God or, as they say, a werewolf. And he dances the Danse Macabre, the only time when humans and ghosts will ever be together.
And when the ghosts cannot teach him anymore, Bod has to go out into town and attend school where the other children think he´s weird and do not like him.
When they´re fifteen, Bod and Scarlett meet again as she and her mother move back to town. Then there´s Mr Frost, a nice old man who is very interested in the graveyard. What Scarlett and Bod don´t know is that his name is Jack …
Die Meinung von Lilja-June (Gryffindor) zu The Graveyard Book von Neil Gaiman
I was taken with The Graveyard Book the minute I started reading. The diversity of characters in this book is extraordinary and every one of them is special. Bod is a very normal boy and this is what makes him so charming. He´s not special or nicer or cleverer than other kids. He´s just a normal boy who happens to be brought up by ghosts. Once again, Neil Gaiman has made up a fantasy world that is stunning. His descriptions are accurate, yet never too precise as to relieve you of using your own imagination. The Graveyard Book sometimes reminded me of Tim Burton movies like “The Nightmare Before Christmas” or “Corpse Bride”, and to be honest, a movie like that based on the novel would simply be awesome. The UK edition comes with illustrations by Chris Riddell which are great and fit the concept of the book very well (I haven´t seen the drawings in the US edition, so I can´t say anything about that). Altogether, if you like scary stories that deal with friendship, family and other aspects of life, you´ll love this.[zurück zu Jugendliteratur]