After completing the Book Meme and mentioning “adult fairy tales” a couple of times I picked up the book Coraline by Neil Gaiman (of course after I finished the Paul Quarrington book I was reading). I’ve had this book sitting around in my book queue (only 9 million books and counting) but forgot about it.
I’m glad I didn’t forget about it forever. I started this short little book (it’s only 176 pages – with relatively large print) on Friday night and completed it on Sunday. I likely could have read it in one sitting, but I’m not that type of reader
The story centers around Coraline, who is an explorer. She likes to discover and sometimes this exploring gets her in trouble. This tale is about one such adventure. I won’t get into details, since I don’t want to ruin the story for those who are planning on reading it, but there are some similarities between Alice in Wonderland (though not as crazy) and Superman’s Bizzaro World.
Even though the book is aimed at the pre-teen segment of the population, which has never stopped me before, I enjoyed this story immensely. If you enjoy modern fairy tales run out and go out and buy, borrow or steal (yes I’m condoning stealing) the book.
4 Comments
books are my sustenance. i’ll have to check that one out!
I’ve started reading Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” series (starting with “The Golden Compass”, which is keeping me highly entertained. It’s another kids series but I don’t care 🙂
And any other story by Neil Gaiman is really good, if you are willing to get into a story with a lot of different characters and a lot of plots going on at the same time.
I read Coraline a couple years ago – it’s brilliant. If yer willing to go even further down the age-scale, (or you are hanging about a Chapters with time on your hands) read Gaiman/McKean’s pictures books: ‘The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish’ or ‘The Wolves in the Walls’. The latter was just turned into a play for children here in leeds – I missed it, alas. Have you seen Mirrormask?
I’ve seen both of the McKean/Gaiman books and would love to have both of them, but alas I’ve never seen them used. Though I should take the time and read them at Chapters.
I own Mirrormask on DVD and picked up the “novelization” a little while ago. The novelization is done by Gaiman with art by McKean (and some movie shots thrown in as well). I’m going to sit down some night and read it, just for the sake of reading it.
I’ve also read the whole Sandman comic series done by Gaiman.
Plus I’ve read American Gods, Anansis Boys, Neverwhere, Mirrors and Smoke. I think that is about all I can think of 🙂 American Gods was one of my favorites (since while you read you were trying to figure out which characters represented which gods). I also have the BBC Neverwhere mini-series, which is pretty good (even if the production value is horrendous) 🙂