“I swear it,” said the other mother. “I swear it on my own mother’s grave.”
“Does she have a grave?” asked Coraline.
“Oh yes,” said the other mother, “I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back.”
Coraline is lured into a strange world by her other mother and must match wits against her in order to rescue her parents and escape.
TITLE:
CORALINE
WRITER:
by Neil Gaiman
ILLUSTRATOR:
by Dave McKean
GENRE:
Horror, Humor, Adventure, Teen Fiction, Adult Fiction
DESCRIPTORS:
Horror, Horror Fiction, Monsters, Vampire, Other Mother, Other Father, Cats, Quests, Exploring, Contests,
SUMMARY:
Coraline loves to go exploring and having moved into a new house provides plenty of opportunity. One day she opens up a door in the drawing room which should have led to a brick wall but opens up to a tunnel instead. The tunnel leads to the other home, with other darker tenants including an other mother and other father with black buttons sewn in for eyes.
Coraline finds that in this other world, all of her whims are catered too by her other mother who loves her very very much. But when Coraline decides that the other world is not for her and leaves, she discovers that the other mother’s reach extends into her own world as well.
The other mother abducts Coraline’s real parents, leaving the girl no choice but to return and face the treacherous other mother once again. Coraline must risk everything to get her parents back. Although she is clever and has the help of both a talking cat and the ghosts of children who have come before her, Coraline’s time is running out. If she loses, she’ll lose more than her freedom — and suffer more than having buttons sewn onto her own eyes.
APPEAL:
Coraline is Neil Gaiman’s first novel for “all ages” or at least for teens and up.
I loved the book. I loved the word play, the use of language and the way Neil Gaiman breathes life into both of Coraline’s worlds. I also enjoyed the sarcastic talking cat. He felt just alien enough to remind me that this was a cat and not a human in cat-fur.
“when you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave.”
During my wife’s pregnancy I found it almost impossible to read any of the horror novels or thrillers that I normally loved. I first read this book shortly after the birth of my daughter and I was especially moved by the scene where Coraline and her real father step on a nest of wasps.
READALIKES:
If you like Coraline you might want to read more fiction for you people by Gaiman such as M Is for Magic
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