Coraline

Rating:
Summary: Fun, creepy and entertaining
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Buttons _can_ be creepy
Review: Coraline was my first foray into the world of Neil Gaiman. I was stuck, just waiting for Robin McKinley or Philip Pullman's next work to come out. Coraline came to me through a classroom book order form geared towards 4th through 6th grade, and I'd heartily agree with that age determination.

I purchased Coraline as a potential read aloud novel in my classroom or to add to my classroom library. While I quickly determined this was not the book for a third grader, no matter what their reading ability, I thoroughly enjoyed this book as an adult reader.

Neil Gaiman has created a fantasy world set in an old Victorian-like house that has been turned into flats. Coraline is slowly likeable as the bored and out of sorts child who wanders into a second world connected to her house via a spooky little corridor. Coraline finds most things in this new world mirror those in her own, including a set of "other" parents. Gaiman's use of language never lets you get lost as you try to sort out the two worlds, even when Coraline becomes trapped in the increasingly dangerous (and creepy) second world.

As per usual in a fantasy novel, the young heroine is aided not only by her own disinterest in doing what she ought, but also by a cast of characters who provide both advice and "magical" trinkets. My third grade students would have loved this adventure. It was written well enough for most of them to follow it, but I couldn't be entirely sure some of the more sinister elements wouldn't have caused some scary dreams. Alas, this one will stay at home with me and I'll have to find a different adventure for our read aloud. My gain.

I recommend this book for middle-school aged children and would probably argue against it for those parents searching for material for their "advanced" but chronologically younger readers. I completed this book in the air between New England and Chicago; this is a one sitting read for adults. I'll be heading to the Neil Gaiman aisle of my local bookstore again soon.

Black buttons.....brrrr.

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Terrifying and Epic
Review: Gaiman does it again, reaching now for a different and seemingly lost genre, the dark fairy tale. This book is certainly the most chilling children's book I have ever read. I shivered as Coraline turned each dark corner to uncover another unfortunate misadventure.

Gaiman's love for dark fairy tales that he was told as a child bleeds through in this story. Coraline is a modern day Alice, unlocking a forbidden door rather than falling down a rabbit hole. And her white rabbit is simply her own childish curiosity. The book is also typical horror as Coraline constantly ignores the plea, "Don't go in there."

The defining moment in the book is when Coraline is talking with a black cat, reflecting on an incident in which her and her father stumbled on a swarm of wasps and her father protected her, taking 39 stings of his own, Coraline only suffering one. In the commotion, her father had dropped his glasses. He decided later to return for them. "He said he wasn't scared when he was standing there and there were wasps stinging him and hurting him... Because he knew he had to give me enough time to run. And he said that wasn't brave of him... It wasn't brave because he wasn't scared: it was the only thing he could do. But going back again to get his glasses, when he knew the wasps were there, when he was really scared. That was brave." (58-59)

This memory parallels Coraline's decision to rescue her parents from the terrible "other mother" (whose frightening disposition and macabre intentions send chills up even this adult reader's spine), regardless of her own knowledge of how dangerous a quest it would be.

Though I would not read this book to my 3 year old, it is super scary storytelling for young adults and a dark fantasy to be enjoyed by adults, as well. Gaiman is great!

Rating:
Summary: "It's Coraline. Not Caroline. Coraline."
Review: In this fantastic book, Gaimon taps into nightmares most people aren't aware they had to create a truly frightening story. Most authors would be uneasy about putting children in such a high-stakes situation, but Gaiman doesn't flinch. A father himself, he knows that children are a lot more resilient that most adults give them credit for--proven by the hundreds of enthusiastic grade-school fans who have written him at his website. Unlike the Lemony Snicket books, the horrifying events portrayed here are told in a low-key, deadpan style which makes them even more effective.

Also check out the unabridged audiobook, read very effectively by the author himself. The background music is wonderfully eerie, and the rat choruses are spine-tinglingly creepy.

Rating:
Summary: Uneventful, dark, standoffish book goes nowhere fast
Review: I know I'll get lambasted for this, but I'm having a hard time understanding Neil Gaiman's appeal of late.

I know what he's capable of. I've read the Sandman series.

I've read Neverwhere and Stardust and American Gods and Smoke and Mirrors, too. Neverwhere is unbelievably brilliant and creative. Stardust is cute, and clever, but not extraordinary. American Gods is clever, but undeveloped in its execution.

I also have Gaiman's other works with illustrator Dave McKean -- The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch: A Romance...the Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish...Dustcovers: The Selected Sandman Covers and others.

So I'm no stranger to Neil Gaiman.

Neither am I devoid of ability to recognize talent, creativity and passion.

That said, I must admit Coraline left me cold. Not much went on in the book. The characters were flat. And it seemed very dark for supposedly being a children's book.

Frankly, the same problem that plagued American Gods seems to run rampant through Coraline: a good idea left undeveloped.

Coraline starts out promisingly enough. A big old house. A curious little girl. A bunch of odd neighbors. And a locked door with a brick wall on the other side. Great premise. Lots of things could happen in such a setting.

Things do happen, but too quickly without any character development. The stories goes from zero to 60 in a couple of pages and then wraps up -- before any explanation is giving as to why this other world existed, who or what those "other parents" are, who the strange neighbors are, and why the little girls seems wise beyond her years, able to face terror with hardly a blink of her eye.

I think Neil Gaiman needs a hard-nosed editor, one who'll tell him, "Great idea, Neil. But it needs to be developed more." Or, "Good draft. Could be published as-is. But I think it needs a bit more fleshing out in these areas..."

I said it in my review of American Gods, and I'll say it in my review of Coraline: Neil Gaiman is extremely talented and creative, but his best work is still ahead of him.

I can't recommend Coraline.

Rating:
Summary: Trippy
Review: I only slept two hours the night I read "Coraline." The first few hours I read and finished the book; the next couple hours I couldn't sleep, reveling in the creative world this book took me too that no other book has. There was not a cliche anywhere: not in story, language, mood, characters. Instead we have scuttling hands, fortune-telling mice, button eyes, and worlds disolving into nothingness on the outskirts.

The unflappability of the young girl protagonists threatens to make the book too low key (as some reviewers have accused), but instead, I think it adds to the odd, vague tone. Also accurate in the negative reviews is their observation that there's a lack of background for this world's existence and for the characters in it. I respond, hallelejah. How many thousands of books are ruined by too much exposition. This book gets to the dark, otherworldly story pronto. Its world is assumed to exist and needs no justification.

Stephen King has never creeped me out like this. I'm reading this book to my seven year old daughter (against the advice of my wife) and loaning it to my tough guy, non-reading friend.

Rating:
Summary: !CORALINE!
Review: This book Coraline by Neil Gaiman is a creapy,suspinceful
fanticy book. This book will send a chill down your back and
through your shoes. Its about a girl who has a pretty strange life as it is, but one turn ofa secrate doors noob will trap her
in a second worled or will it? As she see's things she's never
seen befor she plays a game to save her parents life.So read this book today!

Rating:
Summary: The Confusing Book
Review: I can honestly say Coraline is one of the worst books I have ever read. To me this book had no plot whatsoever.I also thought it was confusing because, when she went from one world to another you couldn't tell she had switched. I will not toattaly down this book because I thought it was nice when she found her partents in the snow globe. But the rest of the book was rather odd. Don't get me wrong I like fantasy books but, this was a little to weird.

Rating:
Summary: Coraline review
Review: The book Coraline is an excelent book. The book has a secret world of horror and I thought that was really interesting. The author Neil Gaiman is wonderful at discribing weird things. I also liked the writing styke of this book.

The best part of this book was when Coraline first enters the new but similar world.She finds that everything is the same but different.It's the same as her house but she notices that the picture on the wall with the little boy has a different expression on his face.Then Coraline finds her parents but they aren't really her real parents.They are called her "other parents".They have pale white skin and button eyes.

The author discribes the characters and setting marvelously.He discribes the other mothers skin as white as paper.He also discribes the begining as if you were right there with the characters.She shares the house with three other people.On the first floor lives Miss Focible and Miss Spink.He discribes them as old and round women. On the third floor lives the old crazy man.

Rating:
Summary: Wins the Nebula Award!
Review: This short novel wins almost every major fantasy & science fiction award but once again the ALA committee blows it by handing the Newbury to an inferior novel. [I'm a librarian and can say that with some amount of authority--although maybe not much.] This book is an instant classic but was probably too dark for the at times very timid committee. At least Gaiman's not alone. E. B. White didn't win for Charlotte's Web and S. E. Hinton didn't win for The Outsiders. I suspect for much the same reasons. Regardless this is a beautifully written tale with a fine, tough little kid with dry wit and great courage working her way through events that would panic most adults. If the book reminds you a bit of Alice In Wonderland, good. It should. Both are books that are dark enough to unnerve some adults and good enough to enchant children. I'll be reading this one to my kids, grandkids and whoever will listen until I'm in my dotage. Buy it, you won't regret it.