Fantasy - The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK. Neil Gaiman. Ill. by Dave McKean. New York: HarperCollins Pub., 2008. ISBN 9780060530938.







Neil Gaiman has written a ghost story that is also a story about the power of family ties. Nobody Owens is raised by a cemetery of ghosts when his real family is murdered one night. He is given the nickname Bod along with the Freedom of the Graveyard, which enables him to pass through solid things, see the ghosts in the cemetery, and see in the dark. He is tutored by Silas, who although it is never explicitly stated, seems to be a vampire, and Miss Lupescu who turns out to be a werewolf. His ghostly mother and father love him, and he has the normal adventures any boy growing up in a cemetery would have. Despite his happy life, Bod still can't stop wondering what's outside the cemetery fence. Bod comes to realize that since he's still alive, he won't be able to stay in the graveyard forever. One day, he learns about the man who killed his family and is still looking for Bod. Unfortunately, venturing outside the fence brings Bod face to face with Jack Frost, the killer. He manages to use the Freedom of the Graveyard to escape Jack and his cohorts safely, but over the next few months, Bod comes to realize it's time for him to venture out into the world. The confrontation with Jack Frost gave him the confidence he needs to succeed in the outside world. Not only have his ghostly parents learned to let him go, but Bod has learned how to let go of them as well and venture out on his own.

One style technique of Gaiman's I especially enjoyed was how the ghosts have lived their mortal lives from ancient unknown times to about 80 years before the story takes place. They all use different colloquialisms and grammar appropriate to their lifetimes, and it's funny to read how Bod switches back and forth to address each ghost respectfully using his or her own criteria of what respect consisted of when he or she was still alive.

Awards and Honors:
• Battle of the (Kids') Books, 2009 Nominee United States
• Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Excellence in Children's Literature, 2009 Honor   Book Fiction and Poetry United States
• Cuffies: Children's Booksellers Choose Their Favorite (and not-so-favorite) Books of
  the Year, 2008 Honorable Mention Best Novel for Young Readers That Adults
  Would Love If They Knew About It United States
• Cybils, 2008 Winner Fantasy and Science Fiction (Middle Grade) United States
• Elizabeth Burr/Worzalla Award, 2009 Winner United States
• Indies Choice Book Award, 2009 Winner Best Indie Young Adult Buzz Book United
  States
• John Newbery Medal, 2009 Winner United States
• Los Angeles Times Book Prize, 2008 Runner Up Young Adult Literature United
  States

Reviews:
Holly Koelling (Booklist, Sep. 15, 2008 (Vol. 105, No. 2))
Starred Review* While a highly motivated killer murders his family, a baby, ignorant of the horrific goings-on but bent on independence, pulls himself out of his crib and toddles out of the house and into the night. This is most unfortunate for the killer, since the baby was his prime target. Finding his way through the barred fence of an ancient graveyard, the baby is discovered by Mr. and Mrs. Owens, a stable and caring couple with no children of their own—and who just happen to be dead. After much debate with the graveyard’s rather opinionated denizens, it is decided that the Owenses will take in the child. Under their care and the sponsorship of the mysterious Silas, the baby is named “Nobody” and raised among the dead to protect him from the killer, who relentlessly pursues him. This is an utterly captivating tale that is cleverly told through an entertaining cast of ghostly characters. There is plenty of darkness, but the novel’s ultimate message is strong and life affirming. Although marketed to the younger YA set, this is a rich story with broad appeal and is highly recommended for teens of all ages.

Nicola Turner (Children's Literature)
Gaiman, famous for his creepy and often scary tales, Coraline and The Wolves in the Wall, has created in his new novel something that is neither creepy nor scary, despite its chilling first chapter and spectral cast of characters. This is a story about the power of family--whatever form it takes--and the potential of a child who is raised with love and a sense of duty. Nobody Owens (Bod) is adopted by a couple of ghosts after narrowly escaping death at the hands of the mysterious man who murdered the rest of his family. After much debate, he is granted the “Freedom of the Graveyard” by its long dead inhabitants. His guardian, Silas, who is neither dead nor alive, brings him food and ensures he is educated in the ways of the dead and the living. Of course, life for young Owens is not all smooth sailing. Bod must face the ghoul gate, the ancient force that waits in the oldest grave, and the mysterious man who still searches for the boy he failed to kill. The story of an orphaned boy being hunted down by a secret society and protected by magic sounds familiar, but while the story of Harry Potter resonates here, the sympathetic, flawed, and ultimately very human character of Bod saves this from being merely a reshaping of Rowling’s epic tale. In fact, Gaiman’s title is an homage to Kipling’s The Jungle Book. I cannot help thinking, however, that this novel should be the first in a series. There are too many questions unanswered. While I never really believed that Bod was ever in any real danger in the graveyard, a boy who sets off in to the world of the living with his “eyes and heart wide open” can only be headed for uncertainty.

Connections:
1. This novel lends itself well to Readers' Theatre.
2. If possible, visit a nearby cemetery to make gravestone rubbings like Mr. Frost
    was doing when Scarlett first met him in Chapter 7.
3. How many diffferent Jacks in the story can the students identify? For example,
   Jack Frost, Jack of all trades, Jack Dandy. Can the students come up with any
   more Jack names that would work in this story, such as Jack Sprat?

Historical fiction - Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

Curtis, Christopher Paul. ELIJAH OF BUXTON.









Buxton was a town established for escaped slaves from the US, just across the border from Detroit. Elijah is the first free-born child in the town of Buxton in Canada. A well-loved only child, he is naïve, carefree, and innocent. He gets taken in by the cons of an adult known as Preacher, but when Preacher steals the money that another resident, Mr. Leroy, had saved to purchase his family out of slavery, Elijah goes on a journey that will force him to grow up fast. He and Mr. Leroy follow Preacher, but Mr. Leroy dies shortly after reaching the US. Elijah continues on his own after Preacher. He finds Preacher, but only after Preacher has been tortured and killed by some slavers. In the barn where the slavers left Preacher’s body, Elijah also finds some chained up slaves who steal the pistol Elijah carries. Elijah learns that they plan on shooting themselves rather than returning to slavery. As Elijah tries to make sense of this “secret…growned up language,” he finally understands what it means to be a slave, what it means to be free, and what it means to grow up. He takes the young baby of one of the chained slaves with the mother’s blessing, and returns to Buxton with the baby to give her to a woman who lost her child and consequently became “touched in the head.” At the end of the book, Elijah is carrying the child, Hope Too-mah-ee-nee, back to Buxton, and welcoming her to Canada and freedom.

In Mr. Curtis’s Author’s Note, he explains how Buxton was founded, why it succeeded where so many other towns like it failed, and tells us how we can get more information on Buxton by visiting the Buxton National Historic Site and Museum.

Awards and Honors:

• Coretta Scott King Book Award, 2008 Winner Author United States
  
• IODE (National Chapter of Canada) Violet Downey Book Award, 2008 Short-List Canada
  
• Jane Addams Children's Book Award, 2008 Honor Book Books for Older Children United States
  
• John Newbery Medal, 2008 Honor Book United States
  
• NAACP Image Award, 2008 Nominee Outstanding Literary Work-Children United States
  
• Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Award, 2008 Shortlist Young Adult/Middle Reader Canada
  
• Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, 2008 Winner United States
  
• TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, 2008 Finalist Canada
  

Reviews:

Carolyn Phelan (Booklist, Sep. 1, 2007 (Vol. 104, No. 1))
Starred Review* After his mother rebukes him for screaming that hoop snakes have invaded Buxton, gullible 11-year-old Elijah confesses to readers that “there ain’t nothing in the world she wants more than for me to quit being so doggone fra-gile.” Inexperienced and prone to mistakes, yet kind, courageous, and understanding, Elijah has the distinction of being the first child born in the Buxton Settlement, which was founded in Ontario in 1849 as a haven for former slaves. Narrator Elijah tells an episodic story that builds a broad picture of Buxton’s residents before plunging into the dramatic events that take him out of Buxton and, quite possibly, out of his depth. In the author’s note, Curtis relates the difficulty of tackling the subject of slavery realistically through a child’s first-person perspective. Here, readers learn about conditions in slavery at a distance, though the horrors become increasingly apparent. Among the more memorable scenes are those in which Elijah meets escaped slaves—first, those who have made it to Canada and, later, those who have been retaken by slave catchers. Central to the story, these scenes show an emotional range and a subtlety unusual in children’s fiction. Many readers drawn to the book by humor will find themselves at times on the edges of their seats in suspense and, at other moments, moved to tears. A fine, original novel from a gifted storyteller.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Spring 2008)
Eleven-year-old Elijah is the first child to be born free in Buxton, a refuge for freed slaves established in 1849 in Canada. When a con man takes off with the funds Elijah's friend saved to buy his family out of slavery, the two pursue the thief across the border to Michigan. The book is an arresting, surprising novel of reluctant heroism.

Karen Coats (The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, October 2007 (Vol. 61, No. 2))
Eleven-year-old Elijah Freeman is the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, a community formed by Reverend William King in 1849 as a refuge for any slaves that could manage to make it there. The community has a strict set of rules and expectations, but that doesn’t stop the occasional snake from slithering his way in amongst the hard-working folk. The trouble is that naïve, good-hearted Elijah doesn’t recognize a snake when he walks on two legs: taken in by a con artist who calls himself the Preacher, Elijah narrowly escapes being sold to a traveling circus, though he really doesn’t seem to ever grasp his peril. When the Preacher steals all the money that another man has saved to buy his family out of slavery and crosses the border, Elijah feels obligated to go after him, since it was he who said that the Preacher could be trusted. Things go from bad to worse on his journey, and Elijah learns the hard way that the stories the escaped slaves tell are grounded in more horror than he can possibly imagine. Curtis’ storytelling style shines here; he establishes Elijah’s character through energetic first-person narration and fixes him in readers’ hearts through comic, sometimes even slapstick episodes. Only then does he open up the serious, at times horrific side of the story. Elijah spends a lot of time trying to figure out the ways of grown folk; in particular he tries to learn how to lie like a grownup, since that seems to him the way they get things done. This story does the best that children’s historical fiction about tragic times can do—it paints an unflinchingly honest picture of the past, while providing a glimmer of empowerment and hope through an engaging and resourceful hero. An author’s note with more information about the story and the Buxton settlement follows the text Review.

Connections:
1. Have the students construct diorams of what they think Buxton looked like.
2. Reader's Theatre - Have the students break up into small groups and each act out a different episode in the book.
3. Discuss how prejudice is still present in our world, just not as obvious. Have any of your students ever expereinced prejudice?