I was gently entertained throughout but by the end I found myself really caring about the story. We watch Bod grow up, be educated, and make ventures into the living world. With hundreds of ghosts spanning several thousand years there's all manner of opportunity for interest and I enjoyed Bod's interactions with them. Thereafter the book slowly cycles back around to its beginning and in the mean time raises our young Bod, equipping him with the skills to deal with his problem.īod's life in the graveyard is very interesting, with him learning various bits of magic and magical lore from the dead. The story is well structured, the brutal opening providing an orphan, a mystery, and an ongoing threat. I think I probably enjoyed it more than she did in fact. I read this to Celyn but the 5* are from both of us. I know this because for the next couple days, whenever we got into the car, he asked if we could listen to 'the story of the boy that lived in the graveyard.' (Which is understandable, given the way Gaiman describes things, focusing on the hand and the knife.)īut generally he was getting it. He's slightly confused on some points: he thinks the boy's name is Jack, and he thought that the man who was coming to hurt the boy was invisible except for his hand. We talk about the story for a little bit.

'There's a hill, and on the top of it there is a fence and a graveyard!' 'What does it look like in your head?' I ask. 'Dad! I'm listening to the story and I can see the pictures in my head!' Or that he wanted to listen to the Sway Music or one of his, as he puts it 'Kid CD's.'īut it wasn't anything of the sort, instead he said. I sighed and turned it off, I expected him to tell me that this was boring and we should stop. We listened to it for about 10 minutes or so, then I heard him saying, 'Dad? Dad!' from the back seat. Lovely accent aside, he's fucking amazing at it. For those of you who don't know, Gaiman reads his own audiobooks more often than not.

So I plugged in the Audio of Gaiman's Graveyard book.

Generally speaking, he'd prefer to listen to Macklemore's Thrift Shop, which he calls 'The Sway Music.'īut he's four now, with a vocabulary that's diverse to the point of being a little creepy. At best he's indifferent, but usually he just asks me to turn them off. But he not a fan of listening to books in the car. He loves to be read to in person, both picture books and chapter books.

Recently, on a car trip with my little boy, I decided to try listening to an audiobook.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman