The Graveyard Book begins with a really gruesome event. A man savagely kills an entire family except for a baby who unwittingly crawls his way to the nearby graveyard. The baby is quickly adopted by a resident ghost, Mrs. Owens, who renames him Nobody Owens. Thus, young Bod grows up in the graveyard and is taught ghostly skills like fading, haunting and dream walking as well as reading and writing by a whole cast of ghoulish creatures.
Neil Gaiman crafts a rich story that often makes the reader stop and say, I never thought of this before. What struck me is the idea that the ghosts go back to Ancient Roman times (the story takes place in England.) Nobody is thus schooled in history and has various learning experiences from different centuries.
In spite of the horrific first few pages, the rest of the book is scary but not grotesque. It is also quite suspenseful when the killer returns to the graveyard seeking to kill the one survivor, Nobody.
Gaiman is an incredible writer!
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