As Bod grows, he realises that he has a place in the world outside, and encounters a series of trials (including facing a ghoul called the Bishop of Bath and Wells and, more scarily, lessons at his local comprehensive) under the tutelage of his guardian Silas (who has a face like ‘a book written in a language long forgotten’), all of which turn him into a strong-minded young man. Gaiman is a master of gloomy atmosphere – the dripping trees, the dank stones – and yet he also manages to make the Graveyard a place of light and hope. He escapes, as a toddling baby, and is found by the ghostly inhabitants of the local church, who promise the screaming shade of his mother to see him through to adulthood (and revenge).
This long-haired, thoughtful little chap is born into tragedy: his entire family is slaughtered by the Man Jack, an agent of a mysterious organisation known as The Convocation.
Devious penguins, dogs turning into trees, do-gooding werewolves and old-fashioned thrills: this winter, the world of children’s books sees some marvellous writing, not least in Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, which tells, in beautifully judged, fluid prose, the tale of Nobody Owens (‘Bod’ for short).
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