Neil Gaiman’s Graveyard Book

Cory just posted this on BoingBoing:

Last week, I wrote about Neil Gaiman’s video book-tour for his new young adult novel, The Graveyard Book. Gaiman read a different chapter at each day’s tour-stop, and videos of the readings were posted, in sequence, to a website, so that you could follow along and hear Gaiman (a virtuoso reader) perform the full text of this wonderful book.

Seems like it worked. The Graveyard Book is now number one on the New York Times’s Young Adult bestseller list. And deservedly so: Gaiman’s combination of The Jungle Book’s elegant and sweet structure and style with a genuinely creepy setting and situation (Bod is abandoned in the graveyard as a baby after his parents are murdered by a serial killer; he is raised by the graveyard’s ghosts, who go back to pre-Roman times, and who give him an eclectic education and rescue him when he goes astray) is utterly inspired, and beautifully executed.

This is a book that is especially fabulous when read aloud — a perfect bedtime book for your little monsters. Neil Gaiman’s Graveyard Book — video tour

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I was at the reading of Chapter Five in Palo Alto, California, and I have to say, it was fucking fabulous.

My daughter is a huge Neil Gaiman fan; her favorite book is Coraline, and she loves Neil’s other kids books (like the brilliant Wolves in the Walls). She came home a couple of weeks ago bouncing off the walls with excitement over a flyer she’d seen about this reading. The timing couldn’t have been better; she finished American Gods a month ago, and finished the incredible Sandman a week before the reading.

The two of use share so much common taste and interest; I was nearly excited about this as she was, and she was practically vibrating on the way to the theater last Saturday.

Gaiman is one of my favorite writers; I’ve wanted to hear him speak for ages. He completely exceeded my expectations; as a reader, as a speaker, as a story teller. He’s funny, quick witted, surprisingly relaxed in front of an audience of almost seven hundred people.

If you watch the video of Chapter Five, you’ll see my exact viewpoint; we waited in line for a couple of hours and were sitting directly behind the camera.

I have not yet had time to read Graveyard Book; but if it’s anywhere near as good as the chapter Neil ready last weekend, it’s going to be a winner.

Neil also was showing exclusive clips from the Coraline movie, which is looking to be utterly stunning. Directed by Henry Selig of Nightmare Before Xmas, it’s got some of the same spooky, otherworldly quality of Nightmare, but with Neil’s unique point of view. I can’t wait to see it.