Coraline

Rating:
Summary: one of the best scary story for pre to early teens
Review: This story tales place in Coraline' family's flat somewhere in the U.K. Coraline is bored with her life her parents both work, her dad makes weird dinners (that coraline hates), and they have just moved in to their new flat.the only thing Coraline finds intersting is exploring the flat, the yard and the houses around it.
There is an old man who lives up on the flat above them who claims he is training a mouse band, there are the two women who used to be actresses who live in the other flat, and there is the door. It resides in Coraline's family's drawing room. It used to lead into the empty flat next to them, but now it is bricked up.
One rainy day Coraline goes explorining her flat and comes upon the drawing room door that leads nowhere.Her mom shows her what's behind the door by using the black key.just a brick wall. Then one night Coraline sees a shadow moving in her room, she follows it untill it disappears under the blocked door.She goes to the kicthen, takes the black key and unlocks the door. There she finds a corridor leading some where. Coraline goes in and finds a world where all the people have black button eyes, her other mother and other father only want to please Coraline, the two former actresses are young and perform for an audience of dogs, where rats are her playmates, and where she finds her friend the black cat.
Her other mother wants to keep her there forever, and kidnapps her real parents. Coraline makes friends with the gosts of previous children who ventured inth the blocked door. Her friend the cat tells her the only way to get out of this place is to challenge the other mother.So Coraline challenges her and makes a deal. If Coraline can find the souls of the three children and her parents she can be free and go home, but if she can't she has to stay there forever and let her other mother sew her eves with black buttons.
To find out what happens next you will just have to read the book.

Rating:
Summary: Creepy but Fun
Review: Gaiman's "Coraline" was creepy but fun at the same time. It portrayed an innocent little girl discovering a disturbing set of "other" parents behind a forbidden door in her flat. The charectors are eccentric and fun. The crazy old man upstairs owns a circus of mice. The mice deliver an intruging message at the beginning of the story that proves true. Maybe the crazy old man upstairs and his mouse circus aren't so crazy... Miss Forcible and Miss Spink, fat old ladies who were actresses in their prime, are immensely likable and realistic.
Coraline is an innocent young girl who ran afall of bad luck. Her "other" father warns Coraline of her other mother before she can regain control of him again. Coraline's mother is a real matriarch in this story and is a control-freak. The other father reports back to her on everything. She created the world Coraline is now in, and she must stay there, whether Coraline likes it or not. Or at least, until Coraline challenges her other mother with something she can't refuse...

Rating:
Summary: Spooky, scary stuff!
Review: Coraline by Neil Gaiman. 2002 by Harper Collins. 1st Edition, later impression.
Gaiman's 1st 'novel for all ages' (from flap of DJ)is also rated for ages 8 and up. It's illustrated by Dave McKean, who collaborated, with Gaiman, on 'The Day I Swapped My Dad for 2 Goldfish'.
This is a spooky story of a small girl's adventure into a mirror world that is strangely, scarily warped. White-skinned, button-eyed 'people' (like Coraline's 'other mother' and 'other father'), cats and rats that talk, lost children's souls, and a missing mother and father all combine to test Coraline's bravery and wits. In this twisted 'other' world, Coraline must rescue her parents, the souls of the 3 lost children, and herself using only her courage and cunning.
A very entertaining read, which I consumed in an afternoon of quiet time; but spooky enough that I'm not sure I would expose many 8-year olds I know to it!
There was the occasional sentence or dialog that would have benefited from closer, more thorough editing. But other than that rare distraction, this book reads very well, in a Fairy Tale cadence, is spooky enough to make you skin crawl, and, at times, you may even jump with a little startle.
Enjoy it. It's a fun read, and is written to be read aloud to your kids, niece or nephew. Read it to your grandchildren, then send them home to their parents. That's always fun! But be prepared to have company in your bedroom or even your bed that night!
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Rating:
Summary: entertaining and important
Review: Coraline is a quick, engrossing read, styled for children with themes all ages must explore. Definitely worth the time, especially if you like Gaiman's layered, worlds-beyond-worlds style. (And who doesn't?) As for the idea posed in an earlier review, that this book need not have been written, I must disagree. Certainly, it summons memories of The Phantom Tollbooth, etc- but as the opening quote states, fairy tales are important. Stories are retold, reread, revisited, rewritten. The process is cyclical, the way life is cyclical. Coraline is innovative, yet classic. We're going to fault an author for that kind of brilliance?

Read it. Do.

Rating:
Summary: Good quick fun
Review: Coraline is the story of a girl who finds a sort of 'parallel universe' behind a bricked-off door in her family's new apartment. Like all good parallel universes, there are non-equivalent copies of most everything from her own world. This universe is like her apartment, except that everything in run down and nasty. In her normal world, Coraline has a neighbor in the upstairs apartment who enjoys playing with pet mice. In her parallel world, the man in the upstairs apartment is made of rats. While there are many things, written in wonderfully creepy detail, for you to discover about the parallel world that Coraline discovers, perhaps the best of all is her 'Other Mother' who is like her own mother, but has buttons for eyes, wants to sew buttons onto Coraline's eyes, and is holding Coraline's real parents hostage. Predictably, but not unsatisfyingly, Coraline's mission becomes to find and rescue her parents from the wicked 'Other Mother'.

Written for young adults, Coraline, is a thoroughly enjoyable story. It is detailed enough to have some weight, creepy enough to feel original for a YA novel, and quick enough to hold the interest even of non-YA readers who enjoy a bit of fun. Being a non-YA reader myself, I liked it quite a lot. In fact, I think I read it in about 2-3 hours. Those who enjoy the Harry Potter series will likely enjoy this novel as well.

For those considering this novel for children, do know your child and perhaps read it yourself ahead of time. Most children old enough to read this themselves will have no trouble, but younger ones may end up with nightmares about disembodied hands crawling through the grass if a parent or older sibling reads it to them.

Rating:
Summary: successful Gaiman piece for young adults
Review: I've read all of Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics and his novels, but this venture into young adult horror/fantasy resembles Roald Dahl or C.S. Lewis more than Gaiman's adult work. Few of the standard Gaiman obsessions appear here, but his fine writing and subtle humor remain. This is an old-fashioned girl versus witch tale but in a completely modern setting. Despite the whimsical supporting characters, the story would definitely be too frightening for small childrens. McKean's occasional black-and-white illustrations help set the tone for this new sort of Gaiman opus. Well recommended for fans of Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket as well as Gaiman.

Rating:
Summary: An entertaining dark children's fantasy
Review: It's easy to see why Coraline is annoyed with her life. Her parents are dull and seem to want her to be just as dull. Her neighbors, including two bizarre retired actresses and an elderly man who seems to think that he can train his mice to perform in a band. She just moved into a new flat with twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open, and the other one is locked. When Coraline's mother first opens the door all Coraline can see is a brick wall but when Coraline goes exploring and opens the door by herself she enters a dark corridor that takes her to a place both familiar and strange. The place looks just like her flat, but it's different. She has other parents in there that are just lie her regular parents, but their not. Cats talk to people and her neighbors put on shows for audiences filled with dogs. Coraline is fascinated by this new place but soon learns of it's danger. Her not-quit parents want her to stay there forever and change her. She runs away quickly but things are not that simple. Now her parents are missing and Coraline has to play a dangerous game to save their lives, and her life too.

Like many books before it Neil Gaiman tells a story about strange new worlds that can exists behind simple objects. The story is dark, humorous, and moves quite quickly, making it a good choice for more reluctant young readers who refuse to read anything but Harry Potter. It's filled with fascinating and frankly creepy illustrations by the talented artist Dave McKean. The only problem I have with this story is it's been done before and the writing, although it attempts to be dark and dangerous, can be a bit too fluffy at times. Still this book is a quick entertaining read that ...

Rating:
Summary: Creepy fun
Review: Gaiman expands into yet another genre with his foray into the world of young adult horror. This eerie book will have you turning the pages faster and faster to keep pace with the steadily mounting ominous atmosphere. A must for young and old.

Rating:
Summary: Wicked wonder, entirely Gaimanesque weirdness!
Review: Honestly, the reviewers for the professional library journals can be so pompous! Gaiman absolutely has a handle on his audience in this and all his incredible ouevre. The characterizations here are marvelous and so right on regarding contemporary suburban families. The plot too, as always with Gaiman, is a page-turner from start to the comes-too-quickly end. But the best thing about this book, which will appeal to the Potterphiles and Snicketites, is that it is so well-written and consummately literary in its myriad allusions to other dark fantasy, fairy tales, and film; the text literally resonates! A good introduction to Neil Gaiman (lucky stiffs! what wonders await!) or a new favorite for longtime fans.

Rating:
Summary: A dark little tale that I'll read again.
Review: This is a creepy, dreamy little nightmare of a tale written for the young adult market. I bought the unabridged audiotape version read (quite dreamily, I might add) by author Neil Gaimen. Coraline is a lonely young girl with endless energy and a keen sense of adventure. Her parents have recently moved into a huge home that has been converted into several apartments and Coraline has been having great fun discovering all sorts of nifty things on the grounds of the home. One day a storm arrives and Coraline is forced to stay inside with only her busy (and somewhat neglectful, if you ask me) parents for company. They instruct her to leave them alone, to go on an adventure around the house and to bother the neighbors. So Coralina does and discovers a door to a secret, sinister world that at first glance appears to be very much like her own. In this world she has another Mother, one with black button eyes and long twitching fingers! This is an interesting dark fantasy that I didn't think was predictable at all. Coraline is a smart, spunky little girl who, when faced with the ultimate temptation, is forced to make a very grown up decision. I liked this one lots and can't wait to listen to it again.