In the event your imagination needs help, illustrator Dave McKean provides black and white images that will make you wince in the brightest light of day. I almost always find black and white imagery more powerful than color, and here once again, color would have detracted from these illustrations. Black and white focuses the images, color can sometimes confuse and distract, or perhaps dilute the message. The illustration facing the text on page 149 easily gains my vote for the creepiest image in the collection. If you have seen images drawn by Tim Burton for some of his films, which will give you an idea of what you will see.

Comparisons have been made to, "Alice In Wonderland", and while you will see it is a comparison that is easy to make, it does a disservice to both writers. A shared element does not automatically mean a comparison is valid or called for, and it can prejudice the reader before the book is opened.

The 162 pages took 10 years to create, and the author states it was both the most difficult book he has written, and the book he is most proud of. I think the audience for the book is as legitimate for adults as for children, and could spark some great conversation between generations, something a great book can do. The book also carries messages for both kids and parents alike, so the book is more than just entertainment.

Buttons for eyes, cat assassins, souls, marbles, mist and mirrors, rats who chant, and mice that jam. It's all here, and it will either keep you up, or keep the lights on while you doze.


great story   August 1, 2002
 12 out of 13 found this review helpful

I really liked this story. Although Amazon.com lists the reading level as ages 9-12, this is really a great read for older readers as well. It's about a girl named Coraline. She's bored and explores everything in her family's new flat and outside of it. She has quirky neighbors, parents who don't have time to play with her at the moment, and the flat has a door that opens to a brick wall most of the time. When it doesn't, it opens to another flat, exactly like the one her family lives it. The food is better there and everything is more interesting. Unfortunately, her other mother and other father want her to stay there forever.

It's a bit predictable at times (for instance, I realized where Coraline's parents were long before she did), but the story is interesting and creepy. It's been a while since I've read anything that put shivers down my spine like this book did. Gaiman's voice didn't always make the story seem very creepy, but the bits where the rats are singing are definitely worth a few shivers. Just a quick note on the cd version, though. Although it's great hearing Gaiman read it, it might be better to get the audio cassette version of it. That way you'd still get to hear him read it and you wouldn't have to deal with the way the book is divided up in the cd. When I listen to a book on cd, I like it best if each track (part of the book) is short, about 5 minutes long, since you can't just stop a cd and be at that exact spot a few hours or days later. This cd breaks up the book at each chapter, which means the tracks are each anywhere from 9 to 22 minutes long. If you don't mind that, that's great, but I just thought I'd warn those who do mind that sort of thing.


Fun, creepy and entertaining   October 14, 2002
 11 out of 12 found this review helpful

Coraline is bored. Her parents work more than she'd like them too, her clothes are dull, her new home is boring, and the neighbors, though interesting, aren't entertaining enough to hold her interest for long. Eventually she finds her way through a bricked-over doorway into a new world. She meets her kind-but-creepy "Other Parents," enjoys a delicious meal, talks with cats and rats, and plays with new, marvelous toys. Still, she decides to go back to her real parents and her real life. Her "Other Mother," however, has different plans for Coraline.

Coraline is a fun and haunting read. I particularly enjoyed the character of Coraline herself - she lacks the supreme self-possession displayed by the protagonists of many other children's books. Sometimes she's a very brave little girl, and at other times she's just a little girl, preoccupied with neon green gloves and boots shaped like frogs.

The book has some genuinely creepy moments in it, and may be too scary for younger children. The "Other Mother" in particular, as she increasingly reveals her true self, can be quite frightening. The disconcerting prospect of having buttons sewn on where one's eyes used to be is another unpleasantness that lingered in my mind's eye long after I'd finished the book.


Turn the Key   July 7, 2002
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

There once was a young girl named Coraline who moved into a new flat with her mother and father. The neighbors are friendly, if not a bit odd and a bit confused, repeatedly calling her "Caroline" by mistake. The little girl is a self-proclaimed explorer, taking walks around the neighborhood no matter what the weather. With both of her parents occupied by work, she counts the doors at home, and figures out how to open up a door which is supposed to open up to nowhere - more specifically, a brick wall...

Coraline's curious nature is akin to that of Alice (in Wonderland), Anne (of Green Gables) and other historical young heroines. Far from being a damsel in distress, Coraline is witty, intelligent and aware. Her 'White Rabbit' comes in the shape of a black cat who has no name; as he wryly explains to her, cats know who they are so they don't need names, unlike insecure human beings.

"Coraline" is a fantastic read for all ages, genders and critters. This is a book to read late at night when huddled under the covers with a flashlight. The gothic feel of this book will please long-time Neil Gaiman fans as well as fans of classic dark fairy tales.


"The message is this. Don't go through the door."   August 30, 2002
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

Nobody can drench a book in creepy, dank atmosphere like Neil Gaiman -- and it doesn't matter if it's a kid's book.

And "Coraline" -- now being released as a movie -- is no exception to Gaiman's track record. It's a haunting little dark fairy tale full of decayed apartments, dancing rats and eerie soulless doppelgangers, as well as a gutsy heroine who finds herself in this ominous "other" world.

Newly moved into an aged apartment, Coraline (not "Caroline" is bored. Her parents are too busy to do anything with her, and her neighbors are either insane or boring.

It's the sort of relentlessly dull world that any little girl would want to escape from -- until Coraline does. She encounters a formerly bricked-up door that leads into an apartment in another world, which looks eerily like her own. In fact, it's so similar that she has a taloned, button-eyed "other mother" and matching "other father," as well as a chorus of singing, dancing rats and magical toys.

At first Coraline is fascinated by the other world, especially since her other parents are very attentive. Then she finds her real parents sealed inside a mirror. With the help of a sarcastic cat, Coraline ventures back into the other world. But with her parents and a trio of dead children held hostage, Coraline's only hope is to gamble with her own freedom -- and she'll be trapped forever if she fails.

Without Neil Gaiman's touch, "Coraline" would just be another story about a kid who learns to appreciate her parents. But he infuses this story with a dark fairy-tale vibe -- decayed apartments, dead children in a mirror, beetles, disembodied hands, monsters that cling to the wall with souls in their grip, and rats that sing about how "we were here before you rose, we will be here when you fall."

That dark, cobwebby atmosphere clings to the increasingly nightmarish plot, as Coraline navigates a world where the other mother has every advantage. And Gaiman's wordcraft is exquisitely horrible -- the other mother's hands are compared to spiders, her hair to undersea tentacles. And the fate of the other father is a magnificently ghastly thing.

He even infuses poetry into the horror ("A husk you'll be, a wisp you'll be, and a thing no more than a dream on waking, or a memory of something forgotten"), and a fair amount of macabre humour ("I swear it on my own mother's grave." "Does she have a grave?" "Oh yes. I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back").

Coraline herself is a wonderful little heroine -- strong, sensible, self-sufficient but still fairly freaked out about what is happening around her. The sarcastic cat is a wonderful counterpoint. And the other mother is the stuff of nightmares -- she's utterly inhuman and merciless -- who "wants something to love. Something that isn't her. She might want something to eat as well."

Neil Gaiman creates eerie, slightly warped worlds like nobody else, and he does an exquisitely horrible job in "Coraline." Just never go through the door.