Coraline

Neil Gaiman (author)

Dave McKean (illustrations)

Bloomsbury Publishing, UK: 2002, 2009: 185pp

ISBN: 9780747597308

Genres: adventure, fantasy, gothic

Issues: family, identity

This book is well subtitled ‘an adventure too weird for words'.

Much praised by other well-regarded writers such as Stephen King, Philip Pullman, Diana Wynne Jones and Lemony Snickett, Neil Gaiman's nightmarish tale, Coraline is perfect for readers who enjoy the darker side of the imagination.

Coraline and her parents have moved into an old house, divided into four flats. Two retired actresses live in the rooms below and a strange old man who's training a mouse circus lives in the turret above. The flat next door hasn't yet been rented so when Coraline begins to hear strange noises from behind the door in the parlour - a door her mother has shown her is blocked up, she is more than a little curious. It is the holidays and Coraline is bored - it's raining, her parents are working and she wants to explore. The mysterious door attracts her. Behind that door Coraline find that daydreams become nightmares, that the grass on the other side of the fence is not so much greener as grimmer. And then her parents... disappear.

Using only her determination and a little feline advice, Coraline must get herself and those she loves out of the clutches of a dark and powerful creature.

This wonderfully chilling narrative goes beyond Lewis Carroll's surrealism into a gothic adventure that has touches of the Grimm brothers about it. Gaiman's world has the uncanny reality of children's nightmares - familiar figures become horrifyingly ‘other', such as the ‘other mother' with her button eyes and claw-like talons that move like spiders. But it also has the simplicity of a nightmare - the ‘defeat the monster and you can escape' rule that works so well in children's literature.

Just as Dorothy's instinct to drench the wicked witch allows her, eventually, to return home, so too does Coraline's instinct to find her parents release her from the darkness - albeit by a circuitous route. Although sensitive readers will find the story disturbing, it will, nonetheless, appeal to their imaginations. Don't read before attempting to sleep!