Horror Book Reviews
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Title: Coraline |
Review of Coraline
In Coraline's family's new flat there's a locked door. On the other side is a brick walluntil Coraline unlocks the door . . . and finds a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.
Only different.
The food is better there. Books have pictures that writhe and crawl and shimmer. And there's another mother and father there who want Coraline to be their little girl. They want to change her and keep her with them. . . . Forever.
Coraline is an extraordinary fairy tale/nightmare from the uniquely skewed imagination of #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman.
Product Description
- 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
Amazon.com Review
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Comments for Coraline
- Posted on 2008-11-21
UNFORTUNATELY ORDERED THE WRONG VERSION OF CORALINE )<:
My daughter and I had a long car trip this summer in which we listened to a library audio copy of Coraline (charmingly illustrated by Neil Gaiman himself) and absolutely LOVED the story. So, for Christmas, I had decided to give her a beautiful hardbound copy of the book to read together.
UNFORTUNATELY: this graphic hardbound novel is like a comic strip version of the novel. DO NOT BUY THIS UNLESS YOU DON'T WANT TO READ THE BOOK PROPERLY. It would be more suitable as a keepsake or extra copy, but the regular text novel is too good to miss. The description here on Amazon was confusing enough to make ME think that this would just be an extra snazzy version of the novel with SOME illustrations thrown in. NO. It's ALL comic strips all the time.
Sorry, but I'm a little miffed at Amazon, NOT the book. A little more information would be nice on these kind of top sellers (at the very least, we could expect that kind of service). As a very loyal amazon user, I am highly displeased at times with the lack of description on some items, and this is the worst thus far.
Score: 4
- Posted on 2008-11-11
Comic Strip Book???
The story was very interesting but I was shocked to find out this was a comic strip book. I think I would of enjoyed this book more after I read the novel. I felt this book lacked the details in the story. After reading the normal novel, then get this book - you'd enjoy it more.
Score: 3
- Posted on 2008-11-10
Coraline novel on CD
The CD was an excellent addition to my classroom library. I was reading the novel with a group of my struggling readers, so to have the audio (read by the author with his English accent!) was a great bonus. It really helped my students get inside the book and the characters. The enjoyed hearing the voices of the rats, the mice and other interesting characters in the novel.
Score: 4 - Posted on 2008-11-02
Modern day "Alice in Wonderland" for adults.
I'm just an adult child at heart and love graphic novels. This one moves to the head of the class. Meet Coraline who has just about anything a child could want but is bored. She discovers a hidden world just next door. Tis similar to her world and yet vastly different and she learns a bit about life. Come join Coraline on her adventure. Perchance you may learn a bit about your life.
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-10-11
For Kids Of All Ages That Like A Good Scare.
Upon moving into her new home, inquisitive young Coraline finds more than just eccentric neighbors and a lot of new places to explore....She finds a mysterious door, with a bricked-up passageway to the empty apartment next door behind it.
But it's only a bricked-up passageway sometimes......
Other times, it leads to a bizarre mirror-image of her new home, complete with "Others".. ...perfect duplicates of her real parents and neighbors....except for the long, sharp fingernails, and the black buttons sewn in place of their eyes......And they don't want Coraline to leave. They want her to stay with them, forever......Forever and ever and ever.
CORALINE is the new graphic novel adaptation of the Neil Gaiman novel of the same name, adapted and illustrated by the legendary P. Craig Russell. Russell has collaborated with Gaiman on four other projects before CORALINE, and his art is a perfect fit for this story. He can do mundane details of everyday life every bit as well as he can portray the more fantastic elements of the often-disturbing tale. The thing that struck me most while reading the book was how much Coraline herself looks like a real little girl. As an avid comic-book fan, I can tell you with some degree of certainty that 99% of comic artists can't draw a realistic-looking child to save their life. They usually look like shrunken adults, or oddly-formed midgets. Coraline not only looks right, but Russel also gives her all the quirks and tics a restless young girl would have in real-life. Just check out page 49, where Coraline is standing on one leg, holding the other leg up behind her....Brilliant little touches like that are everywhere, and the story is much richer for them. Gaiman's story itself is, ostensibly, for children, but it's works equally as well for adults. It's truly a timeless, ageless piece that could be enjoyed by anyone who appreciates a nice, dark bedtime story. Highly recommended, especially for Gaiman fans who may not have dipped their feet into the world of comic-books yet.
Score: 4
