The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman; Dave McKean (Illustrator); Margaret Atwood (Foreword by)

Though I work in a bookstore, I discovered 1 2 3 when my brother gave it to my one-year-old daughter with the intention of helping her learn to count. At first glance I thought it was a nice counting book with beautiful illustrations. Once we read it a couple times, though, I began to notice details I had missed that made reading this book so much more than reciting numbers.

Each page represents a number and also offers delightful hidden surprises. The number six, for example, stars Hansel and Gretel and six shiny sweets, six lollipops outside the witch’s house, six mushrooms in the yard, six white birds, and six cats sulking about. Every page is a scavenger hunt with tons of little details tucked into the nooks and crannies of the illustrations that reinforce that page’s number. Children (and their parents) will enjoy recognizing characters they know well, with spreads depicting scenes from fairy tales from Sleeping Beauty and Jack and the Beanstalk to The Red Shoes and Little Red Riding Hood. There are often characters from other stories slipped into the background, foreshadowing their dedicated page to come. If you look out the window of the Gingerbread Man’s kitchen, for example, you will see Jack’s beanstalk off in the distance and the Ugly Duckling’s pond on the horizon.

This is one counting book I won’t mind reading over and over because I find new details each time we read it. My daughter, at one, is captivated by the illustrations. She loves pointing out the different animals and details. I can only imagine that as she gets older, she will love the treasure-hunt aspects this book offers even more than I do. I think it will help make counting and learning math a lot of fun for her!

Format

Hardcover

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CRITICS HAVE SAID

The Graveyard Book manages the remarkable feat of playing delightful jazz riffs on Kiplings classic Jungle Books. One might call this book a small jewel, but in fact its much bigger within than it looks from the outside. – Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn

After finishing The Graveyard Book, I had only one thought—I hope theres more. I want to see more of the adventures of Nobody Owens, and there is no higher praise for a book. – Laurell K. Hamilton, author of the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels

It takes a graveyard to raise a child. My favorite thing about this book was watching Bod grow up in his fine crumbly graveyard with his dead and living friends. The Graveyard Book is another surprising and terrific book from Neil Gaiman. – Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler

The Graveyard Book is endlessly inventive, masterfully told and, like Bod himself, too clever to fit into only one place. This is a book for everyone. You will love it to death. – Holly Black, cocreator of The Spiderwick Chronicles

The Graveyard Book is everything everyone loves about Neil Gaiman, only multiplied many times over, a novel that showcases his effortless feel for narrative, his flawless instincts for suspense, and above all, his dark, almost silky sense of humor. – Joe Hill, author of Heart-Shaped Box

IF YOU LOVE THIS BOOK, THEN TRY:

Billingsley, Franny. The Folk Keeper. Simon & Schuster, 1999.

Delaney, Joseph. The Revenge of the Witch. (The Last Apprentice, Book One) Greenwillow, 2005.

Fleischman, Paul. The Half-a-Moon Inn. HarperCollins, 1980.

Gaiman, Neil. Coraline. HarperCollins, 2002.

Gaiman, Neil. The Wolves in the Walls. HarperCollins, 2003.

Higgins, F. E. The Bone Magician. Feiwel and Friends, 2008.

Kipling, Rudyard. The Jungle Book: The Mowgli Stories. Illus. by Jerry Pinkney. Morrow, 1995.

LaFevers, R. L. Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos. Houghton Mifflin, 2007.

Pratchett, Terry. The Wee Free Men. HarperCollins, 2003.

Pullman, Philip. The Golden Compass. Knopf, 1996. (And others in the His Dark Materials series.)

Stroud, Jonathan. The Amulet of Samarkand. Hyperion, 2003.