Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jul 2002, 176 pages
Paperback:
Aug 2003, 162 pages
'An electrifyingly creepy tale likely to haunt young readers for many moons.... a real bedtime-buster'. Read an exclusive excerpt at BookBrowse today. Reading age approx. 9 yrs +.
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.
A note from Neil Gaiman about Coraline
"More then ten years ago I started to write a children’s book. It was for my daughter, Holly, who was five years old. I wanted it to have a girl as a heroine, and I wanted it to be refreshingly creepy. I started to write a story about a girl named Coraline. I thought that the story would be five or ten pages long. The story itself had other plans.... It was a story, I learned when people began to read it, that children experienced as an adventure, but which gave adults nightmares. It's the strangest book I've written, it took the longest time to write, and it's the book I'm proudest of."
Fairy Tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten
-- G.K. Chesterton.
Chapter I.
Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house.
It was a very old house – it had an attic under the roof and a cellar under the ground and an overgrown garden with huge old trees in it.
Coraline's family didn't own all of the house, it was too big for that. Instead they owned part of it.
There were other people who lived in the old house.
Miss Spink and Miss Forcible lived in the flat below Coraline’s, on the ground floor. They were both old and round, and they lived in their flat with a number of ageing highland terriers who had names like Hamish and Andrew and Jock. Once upon a time Miss Spink and Miss Forcible had been actresses, as Miss Spink told Coraline the first time she met her.
"You see, Caroline," Miss Spink said, getting Coraline's name wrong, ...
Gaiman has crafted a superbly creepy and surreal fairy tale which will appeal to robust children from about age 9, and most children aged 11 and up. For younger children, new to the horror genre, the story may seem a little slow at the beginning as there is little tangible 'action' and the subtlety of the building tension might pass them by, but if they make it through the first few chapters they're likely to be hooked! Particularly recommended is the audio version read by Gaiman in a well paced, somewhat sinister voice which is enhanced by music and effects from the Gothic Arches who have also been featured on the audio versions of the Lemony Snicket books 'A Series of Unfortunate Events'.
Diana Wynne Jones
The most splendidly original, weird, and frightening book I have read, and yet full of things children will love. Orson Scott Card
A deliciously scary book that we loved reading together as a family. Philip Pullman
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, rise to your feet and applaud Coraline is the real thing. Terry Pratchett
It has the delicate horror of the finest fairy tales, and it is a masterpiece.
If you liked Coraline, try these:
by Kelly Barnhill
Published 2012
When Jack is sent to Hazelwood, Iowa, to live with his crazy aunt and uncle, he expects a summer of boredom. Little does he know that the people of Hazelwood have been waiting for him for a long time...
by Rebecca Stead
Published 2010
Winner of the 2010 Newbery Medal. Miranda is an ordinary sixth grader, until she starts receiving mysterious messages from somebody who knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she’s too late....
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
