The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The introduction to Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book immediately draws the reader in.  The murder of a family has just occurred, but the youngest child has escaped.  The child wanders to a nearby graveyard, where he is taken in and protected from the murderer by a community of ghosts.  Questions abound: Why has the family been murdered?  Why is it so important to the murderer that the child be killed as well?  Who is the murderer?  How can a graveyard of ghosts possibly raise a child?  Will the child survive both the graveyard and the murderer?

We find all of these answers in the story of Nobody Owens, the boy that was "adopted" by the ghosts as an infant.  Nobody grows up in the graveyard, only knowing ghosts, but remaining a live boy.  He survives there through the help of his guardian, Silas, a mysterious ghost who has powers to cross into the living world as needed.  As Nobody grows up, he gradually has more contact with the living world, first through a young girl that he befriends and later by attending school.  These encounters with the living world are fraught with difficulties, but the ghosts manage to extract Nobody from any serious problems.  As the years pass, the man who murdered Nobody's family tracks him down, determined that he will finally kill Nobody as well.  An encounter and chase with the murderer ensue and Nobody must call on all of the secrets of the graveyard in order to save himself.

Gaiman's mysterious novel is a perfect example of children's fantasy.  It has numerous fantastic elements -- magic, good versus evil, heroism, and special characters (Tunnell, Jacobs, Young and Bryan).  The reader is pulled into a world that straddles life and afterlife, with ghosts having magical powers and abilities.  There is the classic struggle of good versus evil as portrayed in innocent Nobody who must fight for his life against evil Jack, his would-be murderer.  Nobody takes on a further role in the story, that of the hero, as he must face trials and mature, eventually defending himself using the knowledge that he has gained through the years.  And, finally, The Graveyard Book is chock-full of special characters, ranging from the ghosts that raise Nobody to the Grey Lady to the Black Jacks and more.


This would be an excellent book for 4th through 7th graders, especially those who like "scary" stories or fantasies.

Source Cited:

Tunnell, Michael O., Jacobs, James S., Young, Terrell A.and Bryan, Gregory. Children's Literature: Briefly. Boston: Pearson, 2012. Print.