Coraline lives with her preoccupied parents in part of a huge old
house--a house so huge that other people live in it, too... round,
old former actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and their aging
Highland terriers ("We trod the boards, luvvy") and the mustachioed
old man under the roof ("'The reason you cannot see the mouse
circus,' said the man upstairs, 'is that the mice are not yet ready
and rehearsed.'") Coraline contents herself for weeks with exploring
the vast garden and grounds. But with a little rain she becomes
bored--so bored that she begins to count everything blue (153), the
windows (21), and the doors (14). And it is the 14th door
that--sometimes blocked with a wall of bricks--opens up for Coraline
into an entirely alternate universe. Now, if you're thinking fondly
of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland, you're on the wrong track. Neil Gaiman's Coraline is far
darker, far stranger, playing on our deepest fears. And, like Roald
Dahl's work, it is delicious. What's on the other side of the door? A
distorted-mirror world, containing presumably everything Coraline has
ever dreamed of... people who pronounce her name correctly (not
"Caroline"), delicious meals (not like her father's overblown
"recipes"), an unusually pink and green bedroom (not like her dull
one), and plenty of horrible (very un-boring) marvels, like a man
made out of live rats. The creepiest part, however, is her mirrored
parents, her "other mother" and her "other father"--people who look
just like her own parents, but with big, shiny, black button eyes,
paper-white skin... and a keen desire to keep her on their side of
the door. To make creepy creepier, Coraline has been illustrated
masterfully in scritchy, terrifying ink drawings by British
mixed-media artist and Sandman cover illustrator Dave McKean. This
delightful, funny, haunting, scary as heck, fairy-tale novel is about
as fine as they come. Highly recommended. (Ages 11 and older) --Karin
Snelson
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