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The Graveyard Book
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The Graveyard Book (2008) (edit title/settings)

by Neil Gaiman (Author), Dave McKean (Illustrator), Chris Riddell (Illustrator) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures... read more

Summary edit see section history

While Nobody Owens’, or “Bod’s”, family was asleep, a man named Jack crept in and murdered the whole family except Bod, who was just a baby. Bod wandered off into a nearby graveyard. Some of the ghosts noticed him and agreed to be his parents and his guardian. His guardian, Silas, teaches him... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

While Nobody Owens’, or “Bod’s”, family was asleep, a man named Jack crept in and murdered the whole family except Bod, who was just a baby. Bod wandered off into a nearby graveyard. Some of the ghosts noticed him and agreed to be his parents and his guardian. His guardian, Silas, teaches him and when Silas leaves, he always has someone teach and take care of Bod.
As Bod grows up, he keeps wondering why he can’t go out of the graveyard. Silas explains that Bod is safer in the graveyard. Everyday, Bod takes his paper and crayons and copies the names of the dead people. While he was tracing names, a girl popped out of the bushes and she was his age. Then, they started to play. The girl’s name was Scarlett and when she left, she told her mom about her new friend. Both her mother and her father agreed that Bod was Scarlett’s imaginary friend. Some days, Scarlett’s mom would take her down to the graveyard and she would go play with Bod. A couple days later, Scarlett came back to the graveyard to tell Bod that she was moving to Scotland.
Bod’s old friend, Scarlett, returned and was now fifteen. She met a man named Jay Frost and she also was reunited with Bod. She researched the murder of Bod’s family and she realized the murder was at Mr. Jay’s house. When Bod came to learn more about his family’s killing, Mr. Jay turned out to be Jack and tried to kill him. They escaped and ran to the graveyard to hide. Jack got into the graveyard and found where Scarlett was hiding. He threatened to kill them, but they got away with the help of the Sleer, who are the other dead people in the graveyard.
Silas decided that Bod needed to live a real life outside of the graveyard. Silas let Bod out of the graveyard knowing that he was safe from the man Jack.will bod everfind his family who knows you should read it maybe

Characters/People edit see section history

Show all 53 characters
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Quotes edit see section history

  • “Rattle his bones / Over the stones / It’s only a pauper / Who nobody owns”
    Traditional Nursery Rhyme
  • ““I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands. I want to leave a footprint on the sand of a desert island. I want to play football with people. I want,” he said, and then he paused and he thought. “I want everything.””
    Bod Owens
  • “‘I’m not actually in pain. I just – well, there’s a girl I used to know, and i wasn’t sure if I should find her and talk to her or if I should just forget about it.’ “Oh! You must go to her and implore her. You must call her your Terpsichore, your Echo, your Clytemnestra. You must write poems for her, mighty odes – I shall help you write them – and thus – and only thus – shall you win your true love’s heart.””
    Bod on whether he should talk to scarlett, and Nehemiah Trot the poet on love.
  • “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.”
    Silas
  • “"You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you change the world, the world will change."”
    Silas
  • “If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained.”
    Nehemiah Trot
  • “Ever since the child had learned to walk he had been his mother's and father's despair and delight, for there never was such a boy for wandering, for climbing up things, for getting into and out of things.”
  • “A graveyard is not normally a democracy, and yet death is the great democracy, and each of the dead had a voice...”
  • “You're alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you're dead, it's gone. Over. You've made what you've made, dreamed your dream, written your name. You may be buried here, you may even walk. But that potential is finished.”
    Silas
  • “At the best of time his face was unreadable. Now his face was a book written in a language long forgotten, in an alphabet unimagined. Silas wrapped the shadows around him like a blanket, and stared adter the way the boy had gone, and did not move to follow.”
  • “In some ways, you've won. I'm leaving school. And in another way, you haven't. Have you ever been haunted, Maureen Quilling? Ever looked in the mirror wondering if the eyes looking back at you were yours? Ever sat in an empty room, and realized you were not alone? It's not pleasant.”
    Bod Owens
  • “Sleep my little babby-oh / Sleep until you waken / When you wake you'll see the world / If I'm not mistaken / Kiss a lover, Dance a measure / Find your name / And buried treasure / Face your life, Its pain, its pleasure / Leave no path untaken”
    Mistress Owens' song
  • “There was a passport in his bag, money in his pocket. There was a smile dancing on his lips, although it was a wary smile, for the world is a bigger place than a litte graveyard on a hill; and there would be dangers in it and mysteries, new friends to make, old friends to rediscover, mistakes to be made, and many paths to be walked before he would, finally, return to the graveyard or ride with the Lady on the broad back of her great grey stallion. But between now and then, there was Life; and bod walked into it with his eyes and his heart wide open."”
  • “You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it.”
  • “People want to forget the impossible, it makes their world safer”
    Silas
  • “Of all orgasm, the tongue is the most remarkable. For we use it both to taste our sweet wine and bitter poison, thus also do we utter words both sweet and sour with the same tongue.”
    Nehemiah Trot
Show all 16 quotes from this book

Setting & Locations edit see section history

United Kingdom

Organizations edit see section history

First Sentence edit see section history

There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

Table of Contents edit see section history

1: How Nobody Came to the Graveyard

2: The New Friend

3: The Hounds of God

4: The Witch's Headstone

5: Danse Macabre

Interlude: The Convocation

6: Nobody Owens' School Days

7: Every Man Jack

8: Leavings and Partings

Glossary edit see section history

  • Macabray: the dance of the living and the dead; the dance with Death
  • Night-gaunts: Winged creatures that live in the land of the ghouls
  • Freedom of the Graveyard: Ghostlike powers given to mortals by the graveyard inhabitants. Users can move near silently, appear almost invisible and pass through solid objects.
  • Ghoulgate: Passageway (tunnel) into alternate realm of the ghouls. Ghouls use it to come to our world and return to theirs. Usual destination after passing through from our world is to Ghulheim, city of the ghouls.

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 730 of 986 in 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up. (authoritative list)
This book is in Newbery Medal. (authoritative list)
This book is in Random Synapses: 100 Book Reading Challenge (2011). (community list)
This is book 15 of 159 in Fantasy Book Review Top 100 fantasy books of all time. (community list)
This book is in 2010-2011 Iowa High School Battle of the Books. (authoritative list)
This is book 130 of 95 in Estrela do Mar. (community list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Neil Gaiman (Author)
  2. Dave McKean (Illustrator)
  3. Chris Riddell (Illustrator)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2008
ISBN: 9780060530938
Page Count: 312

Awards edit see section history

Show all 15 awards

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • The Lord of the Rings
  • Firmin
  • Weir and Other Plays
  • The Forbidden Game
  • A Highly Placed Source
  • Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright
  • What Are You Looking At? The First Fat Fiction Anthology
  • Girl with the Silver Eyes
  • Fall Guy
  • In the Midst of Wolves

Books That Influenced This Book edit see section history

   
  • The Jungle Books

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