I'm not sure why this one sat on the mountain as long as it did, and it was literally years. It could have to do with the fact that I'm really not that into Gaiman. I have read some of his work (Good Omens, which he cowrote with Terry Pratchett and I mainly read that because of Pratchett's involvement, Neverwhere and Norse Gods), and came away not all that impressed. Norse Gods was fun, but I tend to prefer the retellings by the likes of Roger Lancelyn Green.
Anyway the letter G came up. I looked at the shelves in the library and The Graveyard Book leapt out at me. It is far and away the best Neil Gaiman book I've read. It won the Hugo and I can see why. It may suffer from the fact that people see it as a 'kids book', and yes it was clearly written for a younger audience, but it's one of those rare books that works on a cross generational level. Kids can read it and will enjoy it, but adults can also read and enjoy it, but possibly for a number of different reasons.
It's certainly a different sort of book, about a child who escapes from a murder attempt and is found by ghosts in a nearby graveyard. They raise him, along with the help of a vampire and dub him Nobody. Often protagonists in novels aimed at younger readers can grate on older readers. I didn't get that with Bod, I genuinely liked him and wished him well.
The Graveyard Book is quite enchanting. It is at various times funny, touching, sad, frightening and tense. I haven't heard anything about a filmed version, but I think it would work well on screen, possibly better than other filmed Gaiman works have. The version I read featured illustrations by Chris Riddell and they set it off perfectly.
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