Chestsitting Trailers

Paper 15/2009

Neil Gaiman: The Graveyard Book (2008)

	Dt. Title: The Graveyard Book My Rating:

Autor (Quelle: wiki )
Neil Richard Gaiman (...) (born November 10, 1960) is an English author of science fiction and fantasy short stories and novels, graphic novels, comics, and films. His notable works include The Sandman comic series, Stardust, and American Gods. (...) Several of Gaiman's original works have been optioned or greenlighted for film adaptation, most notably Stardust , which premiered in August of 2007 and stars Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer and Claire Danes, directed by Matthew Vaughn. (...) Neil's 2009 Newbery-Medal winning book 'The Graveyard Book' will be made into a movie, with Neil Jordan being announced as the director during Neil's appearance on The Today Show, January 27th 2009.

Bücher des Autors: Stardust (1998), Neverwhere (1996), Coraline (2002), The Graveyard Book (2008), ...


Inhalt (Klappentext, Bloomsbury)
Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts.
There are dangers and adventures for Bod in the graveyard. But it is in the land of the living that real danger lurks for it is there that the man Jack lives and he has already killed Bod's family.


Meinung
Ein Baby suddenly appeared at night in a cemetery. The inhabitants decide to include it with them, to educate and protect. In the following years, the ghosts of his new family, the cemetery his home. He is some tricks that you can dream of normal boys of his age only he can make himself invisible or walk through walls, they experience adventures in secret grave chambers meets on ghouls and witches. But he feels so at home among the graves, so foreign to him, the human world. It is forbidden him to leave the cemetery as it is "out there" too dangerous is, for the murder of his family has not forgotten him after all these years.
The story sounds completely fantastic, but somehow familiar. By the time one reads in the acknowledgments that Gaiman was inspired by the jungle book, comes the eureka moment. Mowgli is to Bod, the jungle to the cemetery, Shir Khan, Jack.

But of course The Graveyard Book (so the German title) is more than an adaptation of the Jungle Book. A charming, engaging story with a sympathetic hero, his quirky ghost friends, his mysterious protector Silas and some nasty foes. We rounded off the whole thing by a handful of illustrations by Chris Riddell. worth reading in any case.