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hardcover $15.99
Harpercollins
Paddyfield.com
Powells.com (USA)
hardback £9.99
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Paddyfield.com
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More reviews by Elaine Leung
Readers may purchase reviewed books from Paddyfield.com, Asia's online bookseller.North American readers may prefer to buy US editions from Powells.com.
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Coraline by Neil Gaiman
The books that put a chill down your spine and make your hair stand on end, often take place in settings that you think you might find yourself in. If you happen to be reading the book in bed, you slouch farther down and pull the sheets a bit higher up, hoping that the horror will end soon -- while at the same time waiting to see what will happen next.
That's what NEIL GAIMAN's CORALINE is all about.
Coraline is a bored girl whose parents are always too busy to play with her. They've just moved into an apartment in a sub-divided old house; she has strange neighbours who keep on calling her Caroline, even though she repeats that her real name is Coraline. She spends her days roaming the neighbourhood looking for interesting things and soon discovers a locked door in her own apartment opening into a brick wall, presumably blocking a passage to the apartment on the other side of the house.
With her parents out one day, Coraline reaches for the key to open the door and finds a corridor instead of the brick wall. She enters and finds herself in an apartment that looks similar to her own, only that it has far more interesting toys, a closet full of clothes she longs to have, and two people who call themselves her `other mother' and her `other father'. Her `other mother' looks like her real mother except she's got large black buttons for eyes and long skinny fingers that never stop moving. Coraline is served delicious food and her `other parents' spend lots of time playing all sorts of games with her.
Her `other mother' suggests that Coraline stay behind because they dearly love her. Even though Coraline finds her `other home' interesting, she decides to go back to her boring `real home' because it is the right thing to do.
Once back, her real parents nowhere in sight. She eventually figures out that she has to go back to her `other house' to try and get her real parents back. Though she is terrified, she knows that she has to be brave and try to get her real life back while saving other lost souls that have been captured.
This book frightens not through terrifying scenes with vampires or werewolves, but rather stimulating young minds to dream up all sort of terrifying images and scenarios on their own. And losing one parents is one of childhood's most common and most terrifying fears.
We all have homes with doors that open onto dark corridors, but it is the corridors in our minds that are the most frightening.
But it's just a book. And not just a scary story, but a remarkably well-written one. It isn't long and the words are simple, but it might be a bit much for the under 10s.
Elaine Leung
12/11/2002
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Elaine Leung is founder and CEO of Asian bookseller Paddyfield.com. |
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