New Newbery

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman is this year's winner of the Newbery medal which is only given to one book a year "for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." Many of my favorite books ever were winners of the Newbery Medal and this one was just added to my list.

"There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife."

Are you hooked? After a beginning like that the single chapter I planned to read before I went to sleep last night turned into reading the whole thing. The book opens with murder, and a child being hunted down by the murderer by his smell. But the boy escapes... into a graveyard. What would it be like to be raised in a graveyard? The author imaginatively leads the reader through Bod's adventures (short for Nobody)... and eventually the hand in the darkness with the knife is dealt with. But I want to not say too much, nothing is worse than giving away clues to a good mystery.

Neil Gaiman wrote Coraline, which has been enjoyed in the classroom by many, and also wrote The Wolves in the Walls and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish which are in the poetry/speech books. He has a quirky sense of humor that reminds me of The Nightmare Before Christmas. He also wrote another version of Coraline, Stardust and M is for Magic. I'll order those for the classroom. They will no doubt be fun imaginative stories much like The Graveyard Book which I highly recommend.

I'll conclude with a passage from the book that I thought was powerful. Silas, Bod's guardian, is explaining to Bod that although he might know that death isn't scary, it is much different than living... (the "they" here are the dead).

"..they are for the most part, done with this world. You are not. You're alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you're dead, it's gone. Over. You've made what you've made, dreamed your dream, written your name. You may be buried here, you may even walk. But that potential is finished." pg 179

Fun and imaginative, yes. But also something to think about. The infinite potential of life.