One of my best memories of 2008, was traveling to Comic Con in NY and having a chance to hear Neil Gaiman read from this book for hours. I was so excited when it won the Newbery! ( )

This was a fun read. It is about "bod", a little boy whose family is killed one night by a knife yielding maniac, yet as a baby at the time, bod crawls out of his crib down into the town cemetery to escape. The ghosts of the graveyard take in the baby and name him "Nobody Owens", "bod" for short. Bod resides in the world of half living, half dead as he can see the spirits that no one else can see, plus he can sometimes fade between worlds when needed. At age 5 he befriends a little girl who visits him in the graveyard to play, but then she moves away. His ghost parents feel he needs proper friends and an education so he attends the local school but hooks up with some bullies and draws too much attention to himself so they take him out. When he becomes a teen, the little girl friend returns and helps him find out the real story about his family and the killer. It is a fun read, intense, fantastical but light enough for the 10 and up group. The only sensitive part would be that the family is killed with knife and it is described in some detail with blood. ( )

While “The Graveyard Book” will entertain people of all ages, it’s especially a tale for children. Gaiman’s remarkable cemetery is a place that children more than anyone would want to visit. They would certainly want to look for Silas in his chapel, maybe climb down (if they were as brave as Bod) to the oldest burial chamber, or (if they were as reckless) search for the ghoul gate. Children will appreciate Bod’s occasional mistakes and bad manners, and relish his good acts and eventual great ones. The story’s language and humor are sophisticated, but Gaiman respects his readers and trusts them to understand.

New York Times, Monica Edinger (Feb 13, 2009)

Personal Review:
I was assigned the book for a class I'm taking, and I thoroughly enjoy it. The grusome beginning surprised me, but I keep reading to find out how Bod is going to deal with the infamous 'Jack.' I figure the villain is named after the famous...Ripper. I think it's a great coming of age story, even though I'm not much of a fantasy buff. I especially like Gaiman depicts the young boy's growing interest in the female persuasion. I wish all young couples were so innocent. ( )

I was looking forward to reading this and was not disappointed. Don't miss the afterward by the author. Made me want to read The Jungle Book. ( )

When I finish a book by Neil Gaiman, any one of his that I've ever read, I always have the vague sense that with just a bit more craftsmanship, the book could shine like the most precious jewel. That said, no other writer keeps me this consistently enthralled in his fictive worlds. This was my favorite of all I've encountered thus far in Gaiman's writing.

In The Graveyard Book, we follow the early growth and development of Bod, a boy orphaned under mysterious circumstances and raised in even odder ones. In that alone, Gaiman's debt to Kipling is clear; the correlations compound as the plot progresses. His adoptive family are ghosts, residing in a graveyard near Bod's previous home. Bod grows up under the watchful eye of all graveyard residents, as well as Silas, his guardian, and along the way learns various tricks and trades of those who are no longer of this world. It is an interesting childhood, indeed, as Bod navigates the borderland between the realms of the living and dead.

Bod is smart and has a good heart and gets into his fair share of trouble, but is ever mindful of the impact his actions have on those around him, living and dead. He has the benefit of excellent tutors, and has an interesting perspective on history, what with living in a graveyard that is several thousand years old. (I felt like more could have been done with this element of the story, but Gaiman chose not to pursue it further. Oh well.) But while his ghostly tutors can educate him on matters of permanence, such as past history and the intransient state of things, they cannot give him advice when it comes to make decisions on things in a state of flux. This point is subtle, but artfully crafted and quite consistent. Whenever Bod needs to make a decision that may have lasting consequences -- and all of his choices do have consequences, some more immediate than others -- he must make the decision on his own.

Ultimately he must make a choice on the value of life. And once he makes his decision, he finds he walks alone more than ever before....

This is simultaneously a grim and uplifting tale. While I'm not sure I would recommend it for readers younger than twelve, given some of the more gory, graphic, and suspenseful elements of the plot, it is definitely meant to be a children's story. There are a number of weaknesses to the overall plot that, while easily discernible to adult readers, would probably be of less significance to a younger audience more prepared to suspend disbelief and less concerned with minor irrelevancies.