The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book is cute. It's a children's book written by Nail Gaiman, and it's definitely a children's book. The plot is barely there and doesn't matter nearly as much as the story of Bod, told in a series of vignettes.

Nobody "Bod" Owens' family was murdered when he was a year old. Somehow he escaped and toddled up to the graveyard where the ghosts adopted him and kept him safe from this man who was still trying to kill him. From there we meet the first living friend Bod makes, watch him get kidnapped by ghouls, see him befriend the ghost of a witch and obtain a headstone for her unmarked grave. Bod participates in the Danse Macabre. He attends school for a short time, but eventually has to drop out because he's drawing too much attention to himself and the man who killed his family is still out there trying to finish the job.

In the final chapter, all of these stories feed into the climactic battle between Bod and the man Jack, who's been searching for him for fourteen years. While it's nice to see everything come together, I kind of wish the plot had been a bit more present in the rest of the book. Mostly, it's just "Bod's Fun Adventures".

Not a bad book, but definitely not my favorite Gaiman book.

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