Coraline Book Review
Gaiman, Neil. Coraline. 2002. Harper Trophy: NewYork.
Genre: Supernatural Fiction
Themes: Horror, family relationships, parental love,

Age / Grade Appropriateness: Book is labeled 8 and up, but this seems young to me,

more appropriate to 10 and up.

Awards: 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novella, 2003 Nebula Award for Best Novella,

Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book 2003, 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Best Work

for Young Readers, ALA Notable Children’s Book, ALA Best Book for Young Adults,

A Publishers Weekly Best Book, A School Library Journal Best Book, A Child Magazine

Best Book, A Guardian Unlimited Best of 2002 selection, A BookSense 76 pick, A New

York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, An IRA/CBC Chrilden’s Choice, A Blue

Ribbon winner, and A New York Public Library “One Hundred Titles for Reading and

Sharing” selection.

Censorship Issues: Very scary and gruesome.

Plot Summary: Coraline moves into a new house that she explores from top to bottom. Her parents are very caught up in their work and when Coraline asks them what she can do, they suggest she visit the neighbors. The neighbors are Mr. Bobo, who trains rats to play musical instruments, and two former actresses, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, who live with a bunch of dogs. None of the neighbors ever say her name right and call her Caroline instead of Coraline. During her explorations, she discovers a locked door that opens to a brick wall separating her flat from the one next door. She uses the key one day to open the door and now the brick wall is gone and she enters into a house like hers, but better. The mother and father in this house seem happy to see her and want to entertain her. The food is delicious, the toys magical and the parents attentive. They seem great and so much better than her real parents, except for their creepy button eyes and that they want Coraline to stay forever on their side of the door. Coraline goes back home and discovers that her real parents are missing and that she will have to go back to save them. Her only help is the black cat, who can talk on the other side and a stone with a hole in it. She discovers that her parents are in a snow globe and that the other mother had stolen the souls of three children. She challenges the other mother to a game, that she can find the children’s lost souls and her parents and will go free or if she cannot the other mother can sew buttons onto her eyes. She looks through the stone and finds glowing marbles that contain the lost souls and tricks the other mother into opening the door so she can run through with the snow globe. While closing the door the other mother’s hand is caught and ends up on Coraline’s side. She lures it with the door key and makes it fall into the well.
Critique: This is not typical young adult literature. It is more of a cautionary tale to make the most of what you are given. It is a novella, so it is a quick read, with a quick resolution to Coraline’s problem. Everything about this story is creepy, especially the images you can imagine from the descriptive writing and the stark pencil drawings. Coraline is a strong character that children can relate to.
Curriculum Uses: The novel could be compared to the movie or students could write an alternate ending. This novel should be welcome in the middle school section of thrills and chills.

Genre: Fantasy
Media: Computer Generated
Appropriate Age: Intermediate and Middle School
Review: This book is a wonderful example of fantasy, because the protagonist, Coraline, finds herself in an other-world when she walks through a door in her home. All the people in this other-world have buttons for eyes, and Coroline's "other parents" try to convince her to leave her real parents and stay with them forever.

Character Analysis:
The "other mother" is the antagonist, and is the creator of the "other world" that Coraline finds herself in. The "other mother" creates the world for Coraline, so that she can convince her to stay, and care for her, or rather become her "slave". Coraline must discover key to the "other mother's" tricks so that she can free the other "slaves" and escape back to her real home.

Frightfully delightful. Coraline is like a darkly twisted Alice in Wonderland. Reading this right before bed gave me a fair share of creepy dreams. The story took a bit to grab me, but I was soon engrossed in Coraline's explorations. Neil Gaiman's writing is wonderfully lyrical. I would love a peek into his brain because his imagination is so detailed and unique. ( )

a classic scare tale for children. review before reading to them. ( )

Well, I am writing this, mainly, so that I can quote two lines, and both of them are not a part of the story.

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
—G. K. Chesterton

this is the quote Neil Gaiman's Coraline begins with, and proceeds to live upto. It is frightening story, and it is a book about fear, and the kind of things people like you and me, people who have enough imagination to be afraid of dreams, are afraid of.

It doesn't take imagination to be afraid of nightmares, they are frightening on their own, though I grant you, it takes imagination to dream up nightmares. But dreams are a different story. You want them to come true. You want to go chasing them, you want parents who will spend time with you, and cook food you love, and everything you want given to you without any payment, without any meaning. Dreams are rose coloured glasses, and if you are imaginative enough, you will be terrified of the distorted view you get through them, because it is so hauntingly beautiful. Desirable.
And this is a book which looks at rosy dreams, looks at it till the pinks become as terrifying as only pink can be, and says,

"Because," she said, "when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave."

So we come to the second line I wanted to quote

It was a story, I learned when people began to read it, that children experienced as an adventure, but which gave adults nightmares.

Because children have not yet seen that, how people mistake dreams for reality, and step into storybook worlds which act on their own logic, which defies any attempt to reason.
And we add one more thing to the list of things they don't tell you but you must know now that you are grown up, dreams are terrible things, and getting all we want is not only something that's not gonna happen, but also meaningless, uninteresting, and dangerous.

And it is always a delight to read about heroines like Coraline. I can't say I grew up reading about girls like her, because stories like this generally have heroes, not heroines, but back when I was a kid, I didn't really notice stuff like that. I grew up wondering if I was brave. And I never noticed how much immersed in the stories of great women my childhood was- it had really been just a part of the background- untill the day when I said offhandedly that I knew ?Lisa Mariter, because I tend to know about women like that.

Also, the other mother. In this book, both the main characters are women, and if it hadn't been a children's book, I would have complained that the other mother isn't frightening enough. You see, she is pure evil, so evil, that she is never a real temptation. But this is a kid's book, and I don't mind an unidimensional villain. But in a better book, she would have been realer than the real mother, and then we could have had conflict, and a test of courage and we could have faced the questions. What is reality? What is temptation? What is happiness? What do we want? Truly want, when we can have everything we want, as long as we ask or it, what is it that we ask for? And how much do choices matter? People judge us by the choices we make, but did we want to become the choices we made?

Were- are- dreams worth the price we pay for them? I guess some are, some aren't. And if one is practical enough, one can make the right guesses, and live happily. And I have come to like this phrase, cynicism is the refuge of the hopelessly romantic. If you are practical enough, you can keep your dreams and your romance, you can protect them from reality. And maybe protect reality from them.

Btw, on the subject of choices, I am going to choose medicine. I am old enough to not hold grudges, actually, I found that as soon as I was no longer in my parents' power, I no longer resented them, but I have not forgotten. I won't take good advice if the only basis for it is misogyny. I can be better than the best of them, and I won't take away from myself the chance to prove that if need be. That is all.

It is not really a dream, I do not want to become a medicine resident, in fact, it is a resolve. And I won't make a song-and-dance of it, but I will stand by my resolve. It has been recently bothering me that I might be brave, but ever since I became brave enough to accept change I have not had occasion for resolve.

And to end, here is a final quote

-- As for believing in fairies . . . many years ago I wrote the copyright notice for a comic called The Books of Magic, in which I said words to the effect of "All the characters, human or otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the faerie folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof." A position I still wholeheartedly support and defend ( )