Coraline

I wasn’t really able to complete many leisure activities this Christmas break. But I did manage to finish Coraline, a 162 page children’s novel by Neil Gaiman. It was entirely creepy and delightful. It reminded me of a mix between the film Princess Mononoke and the Bathilda Bagshot chapter in Harry Potter 7! If those things mean anything to you, you’re probably retching right now. Aspects of the narrative were somewhat cliché, and even reminiscent of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; however, I think that Gaiman does a good job of using those clichés to create a familiar framework on which he builds something new and fantastical (both in the literal and figurative sense). In some ways, it’s the direct opposite of TLTW&TW. Entertain your philosophical side and think deeply about that statement if you read it. Coraline was made into a major motion picture in 2009. On reading the novel, I was hesitant to see the film because I felt like it would simply be too creepy. After researching the film and watching the trailer…I think I’ll need to see it. Enjoy the trailer here.

Read this book if: you like old folklore and fairytales, you like Neil Gaiman’s work, you wanted more of Bathilda Bagshot’s corps being controlled my Nagini (gag), you loved Princess Mononoke, you like splendidly frightening stories with hopeful, moralizing, redemptive endings.

The book says it’s for ages 8 and up and the Washington Post Book World said the novel was, “Inventive, scary, thrilling, and finally affirmative.” I think that sentence sums it up well.