Coraline by Neil Gaiman – RIP III #2

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

YA Supernatural Fiction, Published 2002

Read September 2008

4/5

From the Cover:

When Coraline steps through a door to find another house strangely similar to her own (only better), things seem marvelous.

But there’s another mother there, and another father, and they want her to stay and be their little girl.  They want to change her and never let go.

Coraline will have to fight with all her wits and courage if she is to save herself and return to her ordinary life.

Review:

It’s summertime and Coraline and her parents have just moved into a new flat.  Retired actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible live in the flat below and a very crazy old man with his circus mice live in the flat above.  The flats used to be a big house but have since been renovated to accommodate three separate families.

Both of Coraline’s parents work from home on the computer.  They are too busy to play with Coraline so she sets off on a new adventure everyday except suddenly one day it rains.  After she has watched everything on TV, read every book and counted every item in the house, Coraline is bored.  She counts all the doors in the flat and all lead to somewhere, except there’s one in the formal parlor room with all her dead grandmother’s stuffy furniture and she discovers that this one is locked.  When Coraline finds an old key to open the door, she finds it to be bricked up.  But Coraline is a curious little girl and the next time she opens the door, the

bricks are gone, leading to a dark and empty corridor to the strange and empty house next door.  Unlike in the Secret Garden when Mary Lennox finds her aunt’s old and beautiful garden, Coraline discovers another world that she very soon wishes she hadn’t entered.

Every item from her house is in this house, along with her mother and father as well as her neighbors.  But something is different.  Everything has a little less detail and her “other mother” and “other father” have glossy black buttons for eyes.  At first everything seems nice and her new parents want to give Coraline more attention, but she soon realizes that it’s not all as it seems and quickly runs back to her own home.  When she reaches the end of the corridor she locks the door and searches for her family, but the house is empty and she is all alone.  The “other mother’ has stolen her parents in order to get Coraline all to herself.  How will Coraline save herself, family and friends from the evil “other mother”? With a little luck and help from the black cat who can cross both worlds, Coraline sets out on a new adventure – to play a game with the “other mother.”

The illustrations by Dave McKean really emphasize Gaiman’s eccentric and bizarre story.  Coraline is written for the young adult age group and I think they would really enjoy this quirky story.  Also great for the upcoming Halloween season!

Quotes:

Coraline stared at the leaves on the trees and at the patterns of light and shadow on the cracked bark of the trunk of the beech tree outside the window.  Then she looked down at her lap, at the way that the rich sunlight brushed every hair on the cat’s head, turning each white whisker to gold. (p 137)