Review: Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Coraline by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'd read this book years ago. Then it was picked as the October read for my book club, and I leapt at the chance for a reread. This is a delightfully creepy read.

Coraline has just moved to an old house, divided up into apartments, where she feels ignored by her parents and generally bored out of her skull. While exploring, she discovers a door that only opens onto a brick wall. But that night, when she visits it after everyone's asleep, she discovers that it's a portal to a world with a doting mother, a fun father, and a brightly-colored bedroom with toys that can move by themselves. She soon learns the important lesson about things that seem too good to be true. She has to call on all her wits, bravery, and resources to rescue her parents from the malevolent spirit who's created Coraline's ideal world.

Even before Coraline learns of the price of staying in the other mother's realm, there are plenty of hints that not all is as it seems. The trained mice her upstairs neighbor is building a circus for send along a message to beware, and the dotty old ladies downstairs read her tea leaves and find a dire warning. Nonetheless, it's easy to see why Coraline is able to ignore these signs. The other mother really does her homework in researching how to make Coraline's new life perfect.

One of the ghost children the other mother has captured before calls the other mother "the Beldam," which brings to mind Keats' "La Belle Dame Sans Merci." The story isn't exactly a parallel of the poem, but it certainly seems to be the same creature. One doesn't need a familiarity with the poem, though, to follow Coraline's story, or why she needs to stop the Beldam, or why the story's so sinister and creepy. There are plenty of frightening elements, and the creature shows her colors before long.

My favorite aspect of this story is Coraline's continued resourcefulness. She outsmarts the Beldam not with an easy solution, but by thinking on her feet. She does luck into some of the elements she needs to solve the puzzle, but the resolution is all her. And the final nail in the coffin, which the movie version was quick to do away with, requires a great force of will and bravery to go through with. Coraline is an admirable heroine.

While Coraline seems to be about 8 years old in the book (and perhaps 12 or 13 in the movie), I would recommend any parents of children that young screen this before sharing it with your children. It has some frightening imagery that may stay with a small child. I would've been all right, reading this at 7 or 8, but I don't represent all children, ever. The book is aimed for a younger audience, but it can easily be enjoyed by their parents. Or, in my case, aunt.

I was happy to have the excuse to reread this book. It's delightfully written, and deliciously creepy. Coraline is a fun companion, and her adventure ends all too soon. Probably not in her opinion, but one can't help but miss her once the book is closed.


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