The Graveyard Book

Abrahamian, Peter

Book Review #2

Period 4

14 December 2016

The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman

Fantasy

307 pages.

Newbery Award

 

                The novel, The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman is the story of Nobody Owens, a human boy who lives in a graveyard.  The plot begins when Nobody, often nicknamed Bod, stumbles to a graveyard as a toddler, escaping his family’s murder by a man named Jack. In the graveyard the boy meets Mr. and Mrs. Owens, a family of ghosts who agrees to adopt the boy. After discussing about the lost toddler, the ghosts of the graveyard agree that the toddler will live in the graveyard with Mr. and Mrs. Owens. He will have the Freedom of the Graveyard which means Bod could walk through walls and graves, and that he is invisible to most humans when he is in the graveyard. Silas, an inhabitant of the graveyard, agrees to be Bod’s guardian. When Bod was four years old, he starts to learn how to read and write and he makes a new friend named Scarlett Perkins. Scarlett would visit the graveyard and play with Bod all day long. One day, Bod and Scarlett ventured into a humongous hill, which is inhabited by the oldest occupant of the graveyard. The inhabitant of the inside of the hill is a three-headed snake known as the Sleer, which guards a treasure: a brooch, a cup, and a knife. When Bod and Scarlett traveled out of the hill, cops surrounded the place. The kids have been gone for so long Scarlett’s mother thinks her daughter’s been kidnapped. Scarlett comes back a few days to say good-bye to Bod. She is moving with her parents to Scotland. When Bod was eight years old, he met Liza Hempstock, a nice witch who is considered an outcast by the ghosts. When he hears that she does not have a gravestone, Bod ventures back into the hill and steals one of the treasures, the brooch. After seven years of never leaving the graveyard, Bod finally ventures out into the real world and travels to a pawn shop. The people working at the pawn shop locked Bod up, knowing that Jack would pay a lot of cash to get a hold of him. Luckily, Liza shows up and helps Bod Fade, or become invisible to the human eye. Bod uses human skills to open the door, and he and Liza go back to the graveyard. Later, Bod uses paint, a paintbrush, and a huge paperweight to make Liza a beautiful headstone. When Bod was ten years old, Bod finally learns that his family was murdered, and that the killer is still after him. In order to get revenge, Silas signs up Bod for school. Bod must keep a low-profile and must not cause any attention towards him. This promise is soon broken. Bod tries to teach two bullies a lesson by frightening him with his tricks taught by his ghostly teachers. This caused a lot of attention towards Bod and it even got him arrested for frightening the bullies. After that, Bod tries to stay in the graveyard at all times. When Bod was fourteen years old, he finally reunites with Scarlett. Scarlett's mom and dad have sadly divorced, and Scarlett and her mom have moved back to England from Scotland. When hearing about the murder incident caused by Jack, Scarlett decides to find about it. It Mr. Frost, a nice man who lives in the house where the incident occurred, invites Bod and Scarlett to his house and talks about the incident. It turns out that Mr. Frost is actually Jack, the murderer of Bod's family. Jack tells Bod that he is part of a fraternal organization, known as the Jacks of All Trade. One member foresaw that one day, there would be a child who would walk the borderland between the living and the dead. That if this child would grow into adulthood it would mean the end of his order. Bod and Scarlett escaped the clutches of Jack Frost and stumbles into the other four Jacks. One of them falls into a deep graves and breaks his ankle, and the other three fall into through the ghoul gate. When Bod goes down to the Sleer's place, he finds Jack Frost with a knife to Scarlett's throat. Bod tricks Jack into offering to be the Sleer's master. The Sleer wraps him in his snaky coils and pushes him against the wall. Silas takes Scarlett home and erases her memories of the event. He also convinces her mother to move back to Scotland. The Graveyard Book ends when Bod is about fifteen years old and starts to lose his Freedom of the Graveyard powers. He ends up leaving the graveyard to start his journey as a young adult.  

                    One of the things I really liked about the book was the plot. It interesting to see how Bod was raised in the graveyard and the fun adventures he had in there. I also appreciate the built of tension combined with the disturbing and spooky scenes in the book. It was perfectly balanced at the beginning of the book enough to grab your attention. “The hunt was almost over. He had left the woman in the bed, the man on the bedroom floor, the older child in her brightly colored room, surrounded by toys and half-finished models. That only left the little one, a baby barely a toddler, to take care of.” The tension starts to build up when Jack enters into the toddler’s room. “Jack leaned over, raised his right hand, the one holding the knife, and he aimed for the chest. . . . . . . and he lowered his hand. The shape in the crib was a teddy bear. There was no child.” That really spooked me but it made me intrigued of what is going to happen next. I also appreciate about the book was its magnificent use of vocabulary. I had to use the dictionary frequently to understand what is happening. This book indeed has increased my vast knowledge of vocabulary. Words like aplomb, barricade, and mausoleum were enthralling words that were unknown to me. The ending was a bit satisfying to me. Bod finally gets his revenge on Jack and is finally able to start a new adventure in the real world. What I didn’t like about the book was part of the ending. Scarlett saw Bod as a monster and had her memory removed and she moved back to Scotland. “You aren’t a person. People don’t behave like you. You’re as bad as he was. You’re a monster.” After everything Bod had done for her, she sees Bod as a monster, a terrible human being. What I also didn’t like about the book was how he had grown apart from his ghost friends. He slowly lost his Freedom of the Graveyard and now he has to leave. The place he loved is no longer his home. It was sad to see Bod leave the graveyard forever and to never return. “All the people here have their own lives, Bod, even though if they were short ones. Now it’s your turn. You need to leave.” I would recommend this book to people who love Fantasy and a little bit of spookiness.