My friend Hannah (hi Hannah!) was all, You should read this book, but you should read it in the daytime, because it's creepy. And yes, it is creepy. The other-mother, after all, tries to sew buttons onto Coraline's eyes. But CREEPIER FAR ARE THE ILLUSTRATIONS! I AM TRYING FRANTICALLY TO FIND SOME ONLINE SO YOU TOO CAN BE CREEPED OUT! IT IS NOT HAPPENING!!!!!!!! Consider yourself spared.Oh wait, no. Here's one. I know, right?
Ok, so Coraline is bored with her life and one day she finds a door that leads into a house that is exactly like her own house, except more fun, and is inhabited by her other-mother and other-father. EXCEPT THAT HER OTHER-MOTHER IS THE BOGEY-MAN! Sort of. She wants Coraline for her very own and suddenly Coraline's real parents are missing, as are the musty old spinster neighbors and the crazy man who lives upstairs (who are replaced by eeky representatives of themselves) and then Coraline ends up locked in a mirror with the husks of other children that the other-mother has stolen and she has to go and find their souls and convince the other-mother to relinquish her parents. Spookity, no? Did I mention about the buttons, and the eyes?
Coraline is, like, eleven pages long, so there's not a ton I can say about it, except that it is awesome and that maybe I wouldn't read it to my very young children. Did I meantion that it is a children's book? It is. But then there are all these messages about bravery and contentment and whatall that children need to learn somehow, so maybe I would read this book to my young children, but I would lie and tell them that it had no pictures, and not show them the illustration of the other-mother's severed (but sentient!) hand. But then I would have to lock it up so they didn't look at it later and discover my lies and get to thinking that I was their other-mother, and that I had their real parents squirrelled away somewhere. Because that can be disastrous.
H'ok, this is going downhill rather rapidly. Jeepers creepers, and also great.
Eight caterpillars.
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9 comments:
By "going downhill", do you mean "becoming the best review ever"? I think you do!
I love this book. Neil Gaiman always says in interviews that adults find this book scarier than kids do, and I can totally see why.
Would you think that I was totally weird if I told you that I printed two Coraline illustrations and put them up on my wall? Because if so, I'm not telling you :P
(Not the dismembered hand, though. The mice and the one of Coraline and the cat. Those two are not creepy :P)
I read Coraline in the day, and had nightmares about my other parents that night. Thanks for reviewing books, I've put Minotaur on my list and Never Let Me Go. Hope you and Joel are doing well!! <3 Jen
Thanks for the review - I should pick this up. Neil Gaiman is a good friend of Tori Amos, so that is where I first heard his name and decided to check him out. I really loved American Gods, Neverwhere & Stardust. What an imagination!
Argh, Amazon promised me on 3 Sept. that the book was in the mail and I STILL haven't received it! And I can't wait to start it! And your review does nothing to make me more patient!!!1!
Did you know there is a film version of this coming out? Trailer on youtube.
There's also a graphic novel version, so there are pages and pages of opportunities for a good visual creep-out. (shudder)
i must be a terrible parent as i bought this for my daughter (she loved it). i thought it was more dreamlike than scary. then again i thought the same about pan's labyrinth (scared the daughters and wife). if you liked this book you would probably love the movie mirrormask.
I thought the severed hand was hilarious and a disappointing anti-climax to the scary button eye thing you so aptly focus on here. The hand made me keep thinking of Thing from The Addams Family - "Why thank you, Thing!" Teehee!
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