2009 - The Graveyard Book

Dates read: Dec 2009/Jan 2010
Read or listened to: Listened to
Pages: 320 pp.
Rating: ●●●●○

This was a great book. It took me a bit to get into it. (I actually started it a few months ago without finishing it, but then when I got an MP3 player for Christmas, this was what I found at the library to download--as my first audiobook on the player.)

There really are a lot of messages and themes in this book. Most come out strongly in the end. Here are two thoughts from early in the book:

The main character starts out without a name. He is given the name of Nobody Owens. This comes about as all the "ghosts" in the graveyard talk about who he looks like. Finally, his adoptive mother (I believe) says something like, "He looks like nobody but himself." His name will be Nobody. He goes by Bod. What irony! He is named Nobody, but that comes about because he is viewed as his own unique person.

I also enjoyed the part where Bod meets the witch, Eliza Hemstock. He is counseled to not befriend her because she is "not our kind". This is a typical message shared in books directed to children and young adults - that oftentimes our best friends and those we learn much from are those that we view as different. Eliza does not have a headstone and comments that everyone deserves to be remembered.

As the book ends, it is obvious that the main message of the book is the need for Bod to truly live his life instead of staying in the graveyard. I agree with this, but I love the message of connecting with our past as well. Those who went before us paved a way for our happiness and success. Similarly to things they did for Bod, I believe that there are those on the other side who are currently involved in our lives and perhaps even have ways of protecting us. I am reminded of a time when Grandpa Nielsen very emotionally pleaded for us as his posterity to not forget his grandparents (or was it great-grandparents) who are buried in a location that no one really knows about. In fact, I think I'll call grandma right now and ask her about it.