The Graveyard Book

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The Graveyard Book is a fantasy book by the English author Neil Gaiman . The story is about a boy named Nobody Owens, who was adopted and raised by residents of a cemetery after his family was murdered by a stranger.

expenditure

The Graveyard Book (English The Graveyard Book ) by Neil Gaiman was first published in September 2008 in the United States by HarperCollins Verlag and a month later in Great Britain by Bloomsbury Publishing . In German it was translated from English by Reinhard Tiffert at Arena Verlag 2009 (312 pages, ISBN 978-3-401-06463-5 ). There is a five CD short version in German as an audio book (Das Graveyard-Buch, sound carrier, read by Jens Wawrczeck , director: Kai Lüftner, Munich: Der Hörverlag , 2009, ISBN 978-3-86717-424-4 )

content

The book tells the adventures of the boy Nobody (called Bod) until he grew up at the age of about 17. Each chapter is a short story, with a year or two in between.

At the beginning of the story, the man Jack kills all members of a family except for the toddler in the attic. The toddler had climbed out of his cot, crawled through the open front door to a cemetery, where the cemetery dweller Mrs. Owens found him and wanted to keep the boy. The concerns of the rest of the cemetery residents are dispelled when the lady appears on the gray horse and decides to keep. Mr. and Mrs. Owens become the boy's foster parents. The toddler is named Nobody Owens and is made an honorary citizen of the cemetery. Silas agrees to take care of the boy. He can convince the man Jack that he's lost track of the boy and make him turn back.

As a boy he befriends Scarlett. With her he found the secret of Sleer that in a for thousands of years passage grave waiting for his master.
Once he is kidnapped by ghouls and saved by Miss Lupescu.
Bod befriends Liza, a young witch . She is very sad that she does not have a tombstone. Bod goes to town to get her a tombstone and is detained by a greedy pawn shop owner. With Liza's help, he can break free and get her a somewhat unconventional tombstone.
Attempting to attend a normal school ends in failure because he does not manage to stay out of everything as planned.
His parents and Silas teach him skills on how to make himself invisible, haunted and penetrate other people's dreams.
Meanwhile, the man Jack continues to look for the boy he couldn't kill back then. He acts on behalf of an ancient secret organization, the "Jacks for All Cases" , whose overthrow was prophesied by the boy.
When Bod was around 16, Silas and Miss Lupescu left the cemetery together, and Scarlett, his childhood friend, returned to town. They make friends again. But Scarlett also met a historian who lives not far from the cemetery. The historian, Jack Frost, lives in Bod's former home. When Bod returns to the house, he is attacked by the man Jack and other members of the Jack Just in Case. He can escape to the cemetery and defeat the two other Jacks there. Jack Frost takes Scarlett hostage in the Sleer's room. There the Jack succumbs to the sleer's lure for power and wealth and tells him that he is his master. The Sleer grabs the Jack and they disappear inside the grave.
Silas returns. Together with Miss Lupescu he fought against the rest of the Jacks just in case and won, whereby Miss Lupescu died. The secret organization is thus defeated. Scarlett is very disturbed by the events of the night and Silas erases all her memories of the events. When Bod lost his honorary citizenship of the cemetery at the age of 17, he had to say goodbye to his foster parents and all of the cemetery residents. Silas gives him a passport in the name of Nobody Owens and Bod leaves the cemetery to start a new life.

background

Gaiman first came up with the story in 1985 when he was riding a tricycle in a cemetery with his two-year-old son Mike. The family then lived near the cemetery in East Grinstead , West Sussex . He thought he could write something like The Jungle Book in a cemetery.

main characters

  • Nobody Owens : The main hero of the book, mostly just called Bod. His parents and seven-year-old sister were murdered when he was a toddler. He then became an honorary citizen of the cemetery and foster son of the Owens family, who died several hundred years ago. The mysterious Silas becomes his godfather and teacher.
  • Silas : Bod's teacher and guardian. He is responsible for Bod until he is grown up. He is by his own admission not dead, but neither is he alive. In contrast to the inhabitants of the cemetery, he can leave the cemetery and get food for Bod in the city. He's probably a vampire . He is a member of the honor guard.
  • Miss Lupescu : is Bod's teacher. During long absences from Silas, she takes care of Bod. At first she seems unfriendly and cold, but when Bod is in serious danger from the ghouls, she is there. It turns out that she is a dog of God (i.e., a werewolf ) and also a member of the honor guard. Lupescu is a Romanian name (“lup” = wolf).
  • Elizabeth "Liza" Hempstock : is a juvenile witch. She is buried on the Schindanger outside the consecrated cemetery grounds. She wants a tombstone to mark her final resting place.
  • Scarlett Amber Perkins : a living girl. At the age of five she befriends Bod. When she moves out of town with her parents, they part ways. When Bod and Scarlett are 15 years old, Scarlett lives in town again. She returns to the cemetery and meets Jack Frost, the man who killed Bod's family.
  • The man Jack : the killer who murdered Bod's parents and sister. In the second half of the book it is revealed that he is a member of an ancient secret organization, the “Jacks for All Cases”. He calls himself Jack Frost. The organization wants to kill Bod based on an ancient prophecy that he is the person that will destroy the organization. At the end, he is taken through the sleer to the inside of the barrow.
  • Mr. & Mrs. Owens : Cemetery residents who adopt Bod as a toddler. During their lifetime they were involuntarily childless and so they devotedly take care of Bod.
  • Jacks for all cases : a group of men who all call themselves Jack. The roots of the organization go back to ancient Egypt and “even before Babylon ”. You are responsible for the murder of Bod's family. They were prophesied that the coming of age of Bod would mean the end of their order. So they try to kill Bod.
  • The ghouls : a group of hideous supernatural creatures. They roam the world and cause mischief. They are devious and bear the names of their first victim. They kidnap Bod and want to take him to the capital of the ghouls Ghulheim.
  • The Sleer : an ancient creature that deep in a passage grave resides.

Awards

On January 26th, 2009, The Graveyard Book won the Newbery Medal . The book won the Hugo Award in 2009 in the "Best Novel" category. On June 24, 2010, the book won the Carnegie Medal .

Reviews

literature

  • Niels Penke: "Between the Living and the Dead" The vampire as an educator in Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book. In: Jana Mikota / Sabine Planka (eds.): The vampire in children's and youth media. Berlin: Weidler, 2012, pp. 133–146.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Neil Gaiman Interview: The Graveyard Book . Scottish Book Trust. Retrieved February 23, 2009.
  2. ↑ 2009 ALSC Award Winners . American Library Association. Archived from the original on February 25, 2009. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 22, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ala.org
  3. ↑ 2009 Hugo Award Winners . World Science Fiction Society. Retrieved August 17, 2009.
  4. ↑ Neil Gaiman wins the Hugo Award (German) . In: Der Standard , August 14, 2009. Retrieved September 9, 2009.