Book Review | Coraline #MMGM

Coraline was a gift from someone I worked with under rather tricky circumstances. She rated it… she was right.

I’ve taken a leaf from Rebecca’s website to join in Marvellous Middle Grade Mondays, run by Greg Pattridge at Always in the Middle. Well, I had a load of MG reads to review…. I’m not sure how often I’ll take part, we’ll see.

Coraline

by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell

The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring….

In Coraline’s family’s new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close. 

The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own. 

Only it’s different. 

At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there’s another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go. 

Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself. 

Critically acclaimed and award-winning author Neil Gaiman will delight readers with his first novel for all ages. (Goodreads)

My Review

I didn’t think I was going to like this. It starts like so many others. Well, sort of. But this is Neil Gaiman, and however much you may think you’ve read books about young people in huge mansions which appear to be derelict…. You need to read this one. Yes, it’s about a young girl, and one or more ghosts, and there’s a horrible adult involved. (Warning, I read Awful Auntie last week, and I may reuse this paragraph).

I think this a whole new take on a magical house. Whether it’s magic or witchcraft… well, what’s the difference? Probably just a technology of the future. It’s beautifully written, looking into the intricacies of fear, love and keeping your head in the face of danger. It’s also beautifully illustrated. And Neil Gaiman has done it again, writing fairy tales for adults as well as children.

A warning to any young person whose parent wants to read this to them…. Your parent will probably scamper off to their reading nook to continue reading once they have kissed you goodnight and put out the light.