My two sons (ages 8 and 11) are starting to read what they want to read, rather than what I want them to read. This has been an eye-opening experience for me, since one child gravitates toward science fiction and the other gravitates toward fantasy, neither of which have I ever been remotely interested in. Luckily, both science fiction and fantasy have become much more broad and interesting genres than I think they were when I was a child. To my relief, science fiction is no longer solely about outer space, and fantasy is not always focused on talking animals.
Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book was fascinating to me on many levels, not the least of which was a new appreciation for fantasy, and I cannot wait to share it with my fantasy-oriented son. While I have no patience for fantasy worlds full of vampires and unattainable love, I really enjoyed the idea of ghosts raising a child in a graveyard. I haven’t read Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and I don’t know that I ever will, but the symbolism involved with a child being successfully raised by a community of caretakers different than his own, is fascinating to me. For me, it brings up all kinds of ideas regarding how identity is formed and how random it can be. For example, children are raised with the religion of their parents; therefore, if a child is born to a Jewish mother, but adopted by a Protestant, that child is raised as a Protestant. Random. Almost as random as a boy being raised by a group of ghosts. Love it!
In addition to the novel itself, I thoroughly enjoyed Gaiman’s acknowledgements at the end of the book. (I don’t think I have ever said that about a book before.) In the acknowledgement section, I thought Gaiman allowed the reader to share in part of his writing journey. I found it fascinating to hear the different inspirations he had while writing and the many sources of encouragement. Just as I came to know Bod through his coming of age journey, I also felt like I got to know a little bit about Gaiman through his brief explanation of his own writing journey.
One of my favorite elements in Gaiman’s novel is his matter of fact writing style. While dealing with a subject that is obviously fantasy — the world of ghosts raising a living child — Gaiman’s narrator continually speaks to the reader in such a clear and concrete way, that we are able to forget our own immersion in the fantasy world. When explaining how Bod’s childhood friend, Scarlett, accepted the fact that Bod talked with ghosts that she could not see, our narrator simply states that since “she had already been told firmly by her parents that Bod was imaginary and there was nothing at all wrong with that…it came as no surprise to her that Bod had imaginary friends” (p. 43). As Gaiman expertly navigates his readers through the real world and his fantasy world, his language allows us to simply accept what we are told, in the same way his characters do.
Gaiman also uses tone of voice to give us insight into his sense of morality as taught to a child, specifically Bod. When discussing the idea of people committing suicide, a touchy subject that is interpreted by different people and cultures in many different ways, Gaiman has Silas give Bod a simple explanation: “And there are always people who find their lives have become so unsupportable they believe the best thing they could do would be to hasten their transition to another plane of existence” (p. 104). When Bod wonders if this approach works, Silas again offers a simple, yet profound, explanation:
Sometimes. Mostly, no. 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. If you see what I mean (p. 104).
Even Bod’s response to Silas when asked if he understands — “‘Sort of,’ said Bod.” (p. 104) — is so plain spoken as to allow even the youngest reader to acknowledge that some things will be understood immediately and fully, while some will not.
It is through this matter of fact, simple, to the point tone of voice that Gaiman so perfectly handles the world of fantasy. Rather than rolling my eyes at the inconceivable setting and storyline that I encountered in The Graveyard Book, I allowed myself to believe the world of Gaiman’s creation and to look more deeply into the much more important stories he was telling: stories of morality, friendship, loyalty and dependability.
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