Offering an absolutely stunning fantasy novel about life, death, family and growing up, Neil Gaiman doesn’t seem to be bothered by the fear for death and the dark that repels people from visiting graveyards at night. He doesn’t even consider that death and fear shouldn’t be themes for a children’s book. In his best-selling novel, The Graveyard Book, Gaiman combines the charm of life with the macabre of death creating a delightful metaphor of childhood.
Presenting the graveyard as a sanctuary from danger and reflecting the boundaries between the graveyard and the living world, The Graveyard Book starts with the murders of a husband, wife and daughter that are already accomplished when the story begins. The fourth member of the family, an 18-month-old baby, escapes Jack, the mysterious knife-wielding killer, and toddles to a nearby graveyard.
Following the baby’s scent, Jack enters the graveyard. Although he is sure the baby is there, still he cannot trace him. Confused and disturbed, he tries to understand what a baby boy would do in a graveyard at night and all of a sudden he decides to leave the graveyard and take the downhill street. Convinced that he had mixed the scents, Jack heads off.
The graveyard’s inhabitants, a vampire, a witch and the ghosts of the dead, save the boy and nurse him. A ghost couple,