The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

This book was a little bit everywhere for me. I felt like the main storyline got lost in the giant breaks to fill in the timeline. I almost forgot what the whole book was about by the time we got back to the main storyline. I think the whole concept of the story, a child raised in a graveyard who doesn't act completely like the living or like the dead, is unique and interesting. I just think there was a conflict of storylines in the book. I almost feel like it should have just been focused on the child growing up in a graveyard and what that experience is like and just get rid of the whole villain aspect.

I wouldn't exactly call this a children's book because I believe people of all ages can enjoy this book. It's a great story to read around Halloween and I thought it fit a spooky genre without it being scary or a thriller which is so unexpected with a title like this.

This wasn't my favorite book but the illustrations are so beautiful and the concept is unique that I would pass this along to a younger child. I think this book has the potential to turn younger boys and girls into readers and that's something I'm always going to be behind.

You can pick this book up for $8.99.

Favorite Book Quotes:

• “'You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it.'”

• “'It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. '"

• "Bod stared at Scarlett as she walked away, hoping that she would turn and look back, that she would smile or just look at him without fear in her eyes. But Scarlett did not turn. She simply walked away."

• "Liza's voice, close to his ear, said, 'Truly, life is wasted on the living, Nobody Owens. For one of us is too foolish to live, and it is not I.'"

• "'All the people here have had their lives, Bod, even if they were short ones. Now it's your turn. You need to live.'"

• “We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort. And that is why we write.”