About this title: After moving into a new house with her family, a girl named Coraline discovers a mysterious world hidden behind a locked door. That world echoes Coraline's real life--right down to a woman who claims to be her mother-- but everything in it is somehow off and creepy. When Coraline returns to her own dimension, she is horrified to discover that her parents have been taken prisoner in the parallel world. Determined to rescue her parents, Coraline resolves to battle the evil that lives on the other side of her door. Named one of the Best Children's Books 2002 by Publishers Weekly.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Acceptable. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperTrophy
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780060575915ISBN:0060575913
Description: Good. Used item may show library stamps, stickers and marks. Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: HarperTrophy
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780380807345ISBN:0380807343
Description: McKean, Dave. Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Minor shelf and edgewear. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 162 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: Children/juvenile. read more
Description: Fair. Purchasing this DVD supports the North Central Regional Library. Thriftbooks and NCRL have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Library ID found on DVD and case. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: New. 0061649694 Brand New Book With Remainder Mark. May Have Slight Shelf Wear. In-Stock Now For Immediate Secure Packaging & Delivery wear on DJ. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperCollins
Date Published: 8/5/2003
ISBN-13:9780380807345ISBN:0380807343
Description: New. 0380807343 Brand New Book With Remainder Mark. May Have Slight Shelf Wear. In-Stock Now For Immediate Secure Packaging & Delivery wear on DJ. read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Edition: Unabridged
Binding: Audiobook CD
Publisher: HarperChildrensAudio
Date Published: 10/28/2008
ISBN-13:9780061660160ISBN:0061660167
Description: New. 0061660167 Brand New Book With Remainder Mark. May Have Slight Shelf Wear. In-Stock Now For Immediate Secure Packaging & Delivery wear on DJ. read more
This is the strangest, deliciously creepy book I have read in recent memory. I could not put this book down. It is not a long story, but is definitely satisfyingly complete. The illustrations just add to the flavor.
Coraline is easily bored, especially since she and her parents moved into the new house. But Coraline likes to explore. There are fourteen doors in the new house but one is locked and won?t open. There is a key; when her mother unlocked the door nothing was revealed but a brick wall. The house is made up of probably three flats on her side of the big house, and the other tenants are nice, though a little strange. Two old ladies who read tea-leaves in one flat and a strange old man who talks of his musical band of mice in another. Returning to her own flat after visiting her neighbors, Coraline dwells on the problem of the door that is locked. There must be an equal part of the house on the other side.
Alone one day, she climbs up and snags the bunch of keys hanging high on the wall, which fall to the floor. Taking the one odd key, and on opening the door discovers that the brick wall is not there but there is a long corridor. This is where the book moves from a somewhat typical young adult book to a horror story with all its mystical and exciting thrills, because down the corridor is a replica of their own side of the house, but not quite right. Strangely the rooms are furnished with the same furniture, but slightly off. And strangest of all, Coraline?s mother is there, but not quite. From here the story must be read because what thrill would one get if there are spoilers in the review!
I really enjoyed this book, was fascinated by it, and will definitely be reading a lot more of Gaiman?s books. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes shivers from ghost stories told around a campfire (this is not a ghost story, but the analogy works). I would not recommend it for young children, though."
"An overlooked girl turns heroine as she takes on the oh-so-loving, but creepy other parents. Her real world, unremarkable in its boring freedom, is challenged by another, creepy one, with an othermother possessive as hell. A vivid memory of her real Dad, who stood up to his fear, stirs her moral juices to fight her grasping enemy. Gaiman has a steady hand with the otherworld, but the horror of receding space was a weak stand-in for the controlling othermother. I put down the book with a feeling that this heroine deserved more present danger. A better enemy, if you please."
"I began Coraline one night on my train-ride home from the city, and found myself immediately sucked into the story. My only prior exposure to Gaiman's work had been through the first installment of his Sandman comic-book series, which I thought mediocre at best, so I approached his children's novel with some ambivalence. I was surprised and pleased to discover that I enjoyed Gaiman's prose, and appreciated his perceptive depiction of the child's-eye view of the world around her.
The general obliviousness of adults to the realities and concerns of childhood, is a theme often explored in juvenile literature, and one Gaiman incorporates very ably into the opening of his book. Not only are Coraline's parents distant, and frequently unavailable, but the other adults around her seem to have trouble processing the reality of her existence. All of her new neighbors, from Miss Spink and Miss Forcible downstairs, to strange Mr. Bobo upstairs, have trouble remembering her name, and repeatedly refer to her as "Caroline." One gets the sense that they are simply incorporating her into a pre-existing narrative, without really seeing her at all: "Coraline wondered why so few of the adults she had met made any sense. She sometimes wondered who they thought they were talking to"(20).
The fact that the "other" neighbors, created by the "other mother" in the strange mirror-world Coraline wanders into one day, all manage to get her name right, is a testament to the beldam's focus on Coraline - her determination to keep her. But by the end of the novel, Coraline's real neighbors know who she is, and what to call her - an indication perhaps, of her growth as a character, her newfound strength and self-assurance.
There are many echoes here, from the alternate world, which (as Diana Wynne Jones notes on the back cover) reminds one a bit of Alice in Wonderland, to Coraline's boredom-inspired exploring, so reminiscent of the Pevensie children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But for all these parallels, Coraline is also a very distinctive book. I have heard it said that adult readers find Coraline frightening and horrific, whereas child readers take it in stride. For my part, I was neither scared, nor especially mystified, and guessed the location of Coraline's parents from the beginning. But I did care - about Coraline, about her parents, about the (brilliant) nameless cat - and that's no small achievement for a brief, 162-page novel..."
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