Module 4: Newbery Winners- The Graveyard Book

Module 4: Newbery Winners

Book: The Graveyard Book

Author: Neil Gaiman

Plot

A family is murdered one night but a little boy escapes through the open front door and wonders into a graveyard. Little do the inhabitants of the graveyard know what is in store for them when Mr. and Mrs. Owens claim the boy named Nobody, nicknamed Bod, and Silas-the resident Mystery Being who has status and power- decides to be his guardian. Silas knows that a corrupted party of ‘Jacks’ are after Bod and decided to care and raise Bod along with Owens’. Bod grows up and learns his alphabets from tracing the letters on the tombstones, history from actual historical figures, and has lessons with Ms. Lupescu about ghouls. Bod also learns how to be one with his ghost side and disappear-or be unseen by those who does not want to be seen by. Many parts of this book is wonderful and could be a story on its own in a whole different book: Lisa the Witch, The Ghouls, The Story of Silas, Ms. Lupescu, and the Gaurdians, The Jack of all trades, as well as all the stories of the Graveyard’s inhabitants. One of the best parts of the book is the chapter Danse Macabre. The whole Graveyard is getting ready for a festival that Bod cannot know of and that Silas is not a part of. Bod then stumbles upon the party that goes on in the town; a dance with the living and the dead. The Grey Lady shows up and dances with Bod and promises him that his next dance will be when he lives in The Graveyard for good. It’s a chilling chapter that I love and will always love. This book is an experience that everyone needs to enjoy.

Impression of the Book

Neil Gaiman’s novel The Graveyard Book is a Newbery Award Winner that left me feeling like I had something very special. Not since the Harry Potter series of books I have felt this way about a novel until The Graveyard Book. It wasn’t just the plot or the originality of the story but the characters and the setting itself. The Graveyard, what is usually a sad and very morbid place has become a place of home and peace and good things for the protagonist known as Nobody Owens. His family lives in the Graveyard and his Guardian Silas lives there too. Bod learns about alphabets and life while at the Graveyard and is protected by its magic and inhabitants. For Bod, the Graveyard is a place of belonging and extraordinary adventures. Ms. Lupescu is a great, the ghouls are hilarious, and normal human beings do not compare to those of the ghosts living in the Graveyard. I felt like I was a part of the secret, a part of the Graveyard while was reading this novel. I felt like life itself was different after I read that last page of the novel. I felt sad at the end and grateful that I had read the book for I can honestly say that I loved it. Not since Harry Potter have I loved a novel so much…I enjoy many genres but Fantasy has always been my favorite. Always. And this book…. I love it so much. And deserved all the glory that it got. Great job Mr. Gaiman. You and Ms. Rowling have changed my world.

Usage in a Library Setting

            I would teach the kids about The Dance of the Macabre and have an art activity that  has them draw what that situation would look like and then, as a activity in music, I would have kids create a song to what the living and the dead would dance to. Finally, have a huge collaboration with those willing to choreograph and dance a Folklore dance that somehow represented the style of the Macabre and incorporate the music and art work of all the kiddos for a stage presentation.

Reviews

“Wistful, witty, wise--and creepy. Gaiman's riff on Kipling's Mowgli stories never falters, from the truly spine-tingling opening, in which a toddler accidentally escapes his family's murderer, to the melancholy, life-affirming ending. Bod (short for Nobody) finds solace and safety with the inhabitants of the local graveyard, who grant him some of the privileges and powers of the dead--he can Fade and Dreamwalk, for instance, but still needs to eat and breathe. Episodic chapters tell miniature gems of stories (one has been nominated for a Locus Award) tracing Bod's growth from a spoiled boy who runs away with the ghouls to a young man for whom the metaphor of setting out into the world becomes achingly real. Childhood fears take solid shape in the nursery-rhyme-inspired villains, while heroism is its own, often bitter, reward. Closer in tone to American Gods than to Coraline, but permeated with Bod's innocence, this needs to be read by anyone who is or has ever been a child”- Kirkus Reviews

APA Citations

Gaiman, N., & McKean, D. (2008). The graveyard book. New York: HarperCollins Pub.

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK. (2008). Kirkus Reviews, 76(16), 123.