Coraline
Neil gaiman, illus. by Dave McKean. HarperCollins, $15.99 (176p) ISBN 0-380-97778-8
British novelist Gaiman (American Gods, Stardust) and his long time accomplice McKean (collaborators on a number of Gaiman's Sandman graphic novels as well as The Day I Swapped My Dad for 2 Goldfish) spin an electrifyingly creepy tale likely to haunt young readers for many moons.
After Coraline and her parents move into an old house, Coraline asks her mother about a mysterious locked door. Her mother unlocks it to reveal that it leads nowhere: "When they turned the house into flats, they simply bricked it up," her mother explains. But something about the door attracts the girl, and when she later unlocks it herself, the bricks have disappeared. Through the door, she travels a dark corridor (which smells "like something very old and very slow")into a world that eerily mimics her own, but with sinister differences. "I'm your mother," announces a woman who looks like Coraline's mother, except "her eyes were big black buttons." Coraline eventually makes it back to her real home only to find that her parents are missing - they're trapped in the shadowy other world, of course, and it's up to their scrappy daughter to save them.
Gaiman twines his taught tale with a menacing tone and crisp prose fraught with memorable imagery ("Her other mother's hand scuttled off Coraline's shoulder like a frightened spider"), yet keeps the narrative just this side of terrifying. The imagery adds layers of psychological complexity (the button eyes of the characters in the other world vs. the heroine's increasing ability to distiguish what is real and what is not; elements of Coraline's dreams that inform her waking decisions). McKean's scratchy, angular drawings, reminiscent of Victorian etchings, add an ominous edge that helps ensure this book will be a real bedtime-buster. Ages 8-up. (July)
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Talking of Dave Sim, the latest Cerebus arrived yesterday. Funny, sad, weird, and, toward the end, the strangest combination of Deus Ex Machina Plot Bit and really skewering Fantagraphics/Comics Journal parody I've ever seen. Well, anyone has ever seen. (My favourite word was proforeader.)
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Long e-mail about the mysterious Victoria Walker from someone inspired to do some research. I think he's established that Macmillan controls the US publication rights on her books to this day (no reversion clause), and we have interesting leads. More as it gets more solid.
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Lots of people wanting to know if "You're Not My Mother and I Want to Go Home" will be available on CD, rather than on the Coraline Audio. Claudia Gonson tells me that it (and the Lemony Snicket songs) will most likely be on the next Gothic Archies CD, but there are no immediate plans to do one.
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And last but not even a little bit least, Happy Birthday Holly! (She's 17 today.)