Heard: "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman

Heard: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, 2008. I did not get the ISBN.

Described as children's book but I think Gaiman's kid stories are always worth the time of adult readers.

Set somewhere in England in a seemingly modern time. An assassin is inside a home and has just used his knife to murder a married couple and their daughter. He is making his way to the toddler boy's room but finds the boy missing. The boy had awoken, climbed out of his crib, thumped his way down the stairs on his bottom, spied the open front door and took a walk.

Across the street from the charnel house is a nature preserve and abandoned graveyard. Baby Boy wanders over and slips through the iron fence. Killer - named Jack - follows the boy's scent into the graveyard where a man materializes and uses paranormal powers of persuasion to escort the man from the graveyard and to forget he senses the Baby Boy there at all.

A council of ghosts is convened. The graveyard is filled with ghosts from all ages but most of the ghosts still sleep away in their graves. When debating what to do with Baby Boy a ghost couple who died offers to adopt the Boy. A mysterious woman on a flying horse shows up and says, "Keep the damn kid."

Each successive chapter follows the boy, now named Nobody, as he grows up in the abandoned cemetery. We don't see much of Nobody's adoptive ghost parents. Nod, as he is known, also depends on a figure to be his guardian. That creature, Silas, is not a ghost but allowed to stay at the cemetery. We figure out Silas is a vampire and Silas is the one who goes out at night to get food for Bod.

Time moves on and Bod is required to stay in the graveyard because the killer, Jack, is still looking for Bod. Things happen. Bod make a human friend. Bod makes a ghost friend. Bod tries going to school. Bod enters an ancient crypt. Good stuff.

Comments:
1. I looked at Gaiman's website about the pub year and he lists the usual "places to buy" and also "Library Search" which is pretty damn groovy.