The Graveyard Book is supposedly a children’s book. I hope that its okay with everybody if I read children’s books. I used to read them all the time to my son SuperPizzaBoy. Then when he was eleven or so he is was done with me reading to him. I still miss it.

The book starts with a man named Jack who has just killed three people in a home with a knife. He starts looking for the fourth, a toddler, but the toddler who has had elopement issues has gotten away again and leaves the house and heads for a long abandoned graveyard now turned nature preserve. Jack follows the toddler by following the smell of his pee soaked diaper.

The boy gets to the graveyard and is protected by a ghost. Another ghost convinces Jack that the kids isn’t there. The ghosts, which number in the thousands, most of whom are hundreds of years old decide after a fierce debate to extend the child “The protection of the graveyard.” They also give him the name “Nobody.” The rest of the book follows Nobody as he grows up and learns more about the graveyards and the ghostly life. My favorite parts are where he learns how to shimmer and manipulate human memories and other ghostly skills. That is how he can attend regular school and nobody really remember him at the end of the day.

Eventually though Nobody gets to the age where he has to leave the Graveyard and find out about that man Jack.

The book is wonderful and short. Get it at your library. I give it 3.5 stars out of 5 which is good. I’ll be reading more by Neil Gaiman.