Coraline By Neil Gaiman

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Neil Gaiman on Coraline:

It's Coraline.

Not Caroline.

Coraline...

Coraline wondered why so few of the adults she had met made any sense. She sometimes wondered who they thought they were talking to....

Coraline
By Neil Gaiman

Coraline Jones is home for the school holidays. She is an only child and she and her parents have just moved into a new apartment in a large, old house.

Coraline is a bright, intelligent girl, at the age where she is curious and questioning of the world and the people around her. She loves her parents, but gets a little irritated with them - especially her father and his "recipes" - Coraline would much rather eat pizza!

Although she is independent, Coraline becomes bored during the long school holiday and her parents are too busy and distracted with their work to provide her with much amusement. She befriends some of the other tenants, notably two somewhat eccentric retired actresses, Miss Forcible and Miss Spink who tell fortunes, speak constantly of their days in the theatre and keep several Scottie dogs as pets. Coraline becomes quite close to the two ladies and often goes to their apartment for tea. Upstairs lives Mr Bobo, "a crazy old man with a moustache". He tells Coraline that he is training a "mouse circus" but as he won't let her see it, Coraline doesn't believe him. She tries to get to know a cat she regularly sees in the grounds of the house, but meets with no success as the animal remains haughty and aloof and actively tries to avoid contact with her.

One dull rainy day and bored yet again, at her father's suggestion, Coraline thoroughly explores the apartment she lives in. She discovers that there are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close.

The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall.

That night Coraline is woken up by a creaking noise and getting out of bed to investigate, she sees a tall, thin, dark shadow shaped a bit like a woman. The shadow scuttles away into another room and when Coraline turns on the light, she sees that the mysterious bricked up door is very slightly open.... This fact disturbs her as she clearly remembers her mother locking it...she goes back to bed, but dreams of scary, small, black shadows with sharp teeth which gather together and sing a very disturbing song.

The next day Coraline receives a strange message from Mr Bobo. He tells her that his mice have sent her a warning; "Don't go through the door"...

Coraline goes to visit Miss Forcible and Miss Spink and they have tea. Miss Spink offers to tell Coraline's fortune by reading the tea leaves in her cup. She warns Coraline that she is in terrible danger and after checking the tea leaves for herself, Miss Forcible agrees. Coraline tries to get the ladies to be specific about the nature of the danger, but true to their eccentric nature they are vague and simply say that the tea leaves are "good for generalities, but not for specifics". They do however, give Coraline a stone with a hole in it which they say will help to protect her.

The next day, Coraline's father goes to work and she declines her mother's invitation to come shopping. Bored again, she takes the key to the locked door and opens it...this time there are no bricks blocking the entrance. She sees a long dark hallway, and intrigued, she steps through the doorway...

Coraline finds herself in what at first glance looks exactly like her own apartment...but subtly different, although she can't quite put her finger on how...

In the kitchen she finds a figure who she thinks at first is her mother...but when the woman turns round she sees that it isn't her mother - this version of her mother is tall, thin, has skin as white as paper, long sharp fingernails...and where her eyes should be, are big, black buttons. The woman tells her that she is her "Other Mother" and asks her to fetch her "Other Father" as it's time for lunch. Her "Other Father" also has buttons instead of eyes.

Finding that her "Other Mother" is not only a wonderful cook, and that she seems willing to give Coraline all the attention her own mother is too busy to give her, Coraline at first thinks that this new place is quite exciting and interesting. She explores her new environment and finds distorted mirror images of the people and things in her own world. In this place the aloof cat is friendly and can speak whereas the "other" versions of Miss Forcible, Miss Spink and Mr Bobo are very strange and frightening.

When her "Other Mother" asks if she can sew black buttons in place of Coraline's own eyes so that she can stay with her forever, Coraline decides that it's time to return to her own world and wait for her own parents to get home.

...only her real parents don't come back and Coraline has no option but to return to the world behind the door on a quest to find them...

I'm not going to spoil the story by going any further! Coraline is an absorbing and rather scary tale, written by a first class storyteller and I highly recommend that you read it yourself!

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Coraline Jones: Coraline is an only child, who has just moved into a new flat (apartment) with her parents. She is curious, imaginative and intelligent, but her parents are frequently preoccupied with work, so she is often left to amuse herself and gets very bored and lonely. There are no other children living in her building, so she makes friends with some of the eccentric residents who live in the other apartments. Coraline HATES it when people call her "Caroline" instead of "Coraline".

Mrs & Mrs Jones: Coraline's parents love Coraline but are very wrapped up in their work. Coraline's father enjoys cooking and likes making family dinners from "recipes" but to his dismay, Coraline isn't impressed.

The Cat: The black cat from Coraline's world is aloof and unfriendly. The cat from the Other Mother's world is exactly the opposite. It makes friends with Coraline, talks to her and acts as a guide and mentor to her.

The Other Mother or Beldam: The creator of the world on the other side of the locked door. At first glance, she looks very much like Coraline's real mother but on closer inspection she is taller and thinner, with long black hair, paper-white skin, long, bony fingers with dark red nails...and where her eyes should be, are round, shiny buttons sewn on to her face... She entices children to enter her world and tempts them to stay there by promising them her love along with anything and everything they could ever want, but when she gets bored with them or they want to go back home to their own world, she imprisons them in a dark place behind a magical mirror and drains the life from them...leaving behind just a whisper of who they once were.

The Other Father: A 'creation' of the Other Mother. He also has buttons for eyes and is made to do the bidding of the Other Mother like a puppet.

Miss Forcible and Miss Spink: Two retired actresses who live in the flat next door to Coraline. They own several Scottie dogs, and talk incessantly about their time on the stage. They tell fortunes and by reading Coraline's tea leaves, they know she is in some kind of danger. To help her, they give her a stone with a hole in it to help protect her, although they either do not know, or do not say what the danger actually is. Warped versions of them also appear in the Other World, where they are young and pretty again, and give performances to an audience of their dogs, who can speak and act like humans.

Mr. Bobo: A retired circus performer who lives upstairs. Coraline refers to him as "the Crazy Old Man Upstairs". He often claims he is training mice to perform in a mouse circus, and his mice send Coraline messages warning her of danger. In the "Other World", he trains rats instead of mice.

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It sounded like her mother. Coraline went into the kitchen, where the voice had come from. A woman stood in the kitchen with her back to Coraline. She looked a little like Coraline's mother. Only...

Only her skin was white as paper.

Only she was taller and thinner.

Only her fingers were too long, and they never stopped moving, and her dark-red fingernails were curved and sharp.

"Coraline?", the woman said, "Is that you?"

And then she turned round. Her eyes were big, black buttons...

She will take your life and all you are and all you care'st for, and she will leave you with nothing but mist and fog.

She'll take your joy. And one day you'll awake and your heart and your soul will have gone. A husk you'll be, a wisp you'll be, and a thing no more than a dream on waking, or a memory of something forgotten.

Hollow...

The cat yawned slowly, carefully, revealing a mouth and tongue of astounding pinkness. "Cats don't have names," it said.

"No?" said Coraline.

"No," said the cat. "Now, you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names."

"Gaiman's tale is inventive, scary, thrilling and finally affirmative. Readers young and old will find something to startle them." --Washington Post Book World

"As we used to say, it blew my mind - chilly, finely-wrought prose, a truly weird setting and a fable that taps into our most uncomfortable fears." --Times Educational Supplement

"It has the delicate horror of the finest fairy tales, and it is a masterpiece." --Terry Pratchett

"A magnificently creepy story - for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister, Coraline is spot on." --Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"By turns creepy and funny, bittersweet and playful - can be read quickly and enjoyed deeply." --San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

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Odd and the Frost Giants

M Is for Magic

The Graveyard Book

Blueberry Girl

The Wolves in the Walls

Instructions

Crazy Hair

The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish

The Neil Gaiman Audio Collection

The cat dropped the rat between its two front paws. "There are those," it said with a sigh, in tones as smooth as oiled silk, "who have suggested that the tendency of a cat to play with its prey is a merciful one -- after all, it permits the occasional funny little running snack to escape, from time to time. How often does your dinner get to escape?"

"How do I know you'll keep your word?" asked Coraline.

"I swear it", said the other mother. "I swear it on my own mother's grave."

"Does she have a grave?", asked Coraline.

"Oh yes," said the other mother. "I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back."

The voice cast of Coraline is;

Coraline Jones - Dakota Fanning

Coraline's Mother (Mrs Jones)/The Other Mother - Teri Hatcher

Coraline's Father (Mr Jones)/The Other Father - John Hodgman

The Cat - Keith David

Miss Forcible - Dawn French

Miss Spink - Jennifer Saunders

Mr Bobo (called Mr Bobinsky in the film) - Ian McShane

Wybie Lovat (a new character created for the film and who does not appear in the original book) - Robert Baily Jr

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