“The Graveyard Book” is another example in Gaiman’s vast cannon of distinguished works. I’m always impressed by the whimsical and dark writing of Neil Gaiman. Author of such books as Coraline, Stardust, American Gods, and Mirrormask, Gaiman has a zeal and zest for chilling stories with complex characters and novel twists.

“The Graveyard Book” is not your average children’s Newberry award winning novel. This one begins with a man, referred only to as Jack, murdering a man, woman, and their daughter in their home. The killer is about to end the life of the baby boy at the top of stairs, when the child crawls to safety and finds himself in the town’s local graveyard.  Given the name Nobody Owens by the inhabitants of the graveyard, Nobody is raised, protected, and educated by the denizens of the graveyard.  Nobody is given the Freedom of the Graveyard allowing him to talk to ghosts, travel through ghoul-gates, run errands for witches, and have magical powers including Fade, inducing Terror, and Dreamwalk. While the ghosts and guardians of the graveyard raise Nobody as their own, the man called Jack is out there somewhere seeking to finish what he started that night.

Gaiman truly has mastery in creating a narrative landscapes ripe with deep and complex characters. From Silas, Nobody’s Guardian, to Liza Hempstock, the graveyard witch, each person is delicately woven to add a beautiful piece to the puzzle of the overall story. At its heart, “The Graveyard Book”, is a coming-of-age story of a boy learning the intricacies of life through some unconventional tutors. Who better to learn the potentials and hardships of life from than the dead?

During his Newberry acceptance speech for this novel, Gaiman relating the impact that fiction had on his childhood. He said;

“Fiction was an escape from the intolerable, a doorway into impossibly hospitable worlds where things had rules and could be understood; stories had been a way of learning about life without experiencing it, or perhaps of experiencing it as an eighteenth-century poisoner dealt with poisons, taking them in tiny doses, such that the poisoner could cope with ingesting things that would kill someone who was not inured to them. Sometimes fiction is a way of coping with the poison of the world in a way that lets us survive it”

I like to pride myself as being a little bit of a bookworm and also an incredibly huge science fiction/fantasy lover. My interests harmoniously collided when I found writer Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman is a brilliant fantasy and horror writer whose dark humor, clear character development, and horrifying imagery creates a fantastic landscape and an epic storyline.

Neil Gaiman is perhaps most notably known for his novel Stardust which was then adapted into a movie in 2007 starring Michelle Pfiefer, Robert De Niro - as a cross dressing gay pirate [DELICIOUS] -, and Claire Danes. Stardust relates the love story of young Tristan who travels in a magical land in search of a fallen star to give to his hometown sweetheart. Little does he know that that fallen star turns out to be the majestic Claire Danes.

However my favorite piece by Neil Gaiman is his novel American Gods. I am really into different mythologies - again a part of the whole nerdy geeky thing - and this book is right in line with that. Imagine a world where all of the gods of ancient mythology actually existed. When immigrants traveled over to America they carried their ancient gods with them and it was through their belief that these Gods were endowed with power. However, over time people have lost their faith in the gods of old and have replaced it with faith in new gods, particularly gods of technology, food, consumerism, drugs. So now these gods are walking the earth as people all involved in never ending battle to garner faith and belief from us.

It is an absolutely incredible story and I fully recommend it to anyone. At times you have to suspend your sense of reality and just accept that what is happening in the novel is the reality of the situation. I really like it because part of the story takes place in Wisconsin, specifically the House on the Rock which was incredibly close to Madison. So if you're looking for a slightly graphic novel with an engaging yet complicated story line, then choose this novel.