you have to read the book to know all the answers. you won't regret it once you start reading it. just go, buy the book and read it. There are some things that are going to bother an adult reader. For example, a certain twist the location of Coraline's REAL parents will be obviously to an adult reader LONG before Coraline ever figures it out. I like the story. I like the unexpected adventures Caroline had to explore. I like the side characters. I like the fact that the 'other' parents seemed more convincing than the actual parents. I like the book as a whole. The book reads like a creepy fairy tale and we all savored it. It surely held our interest, and I thought it was written really well with good descriptions. Neil Gaiman definitely doesn’t disappoint with Coraline. I think it’s perfect for all ages, but maybe too creepy for very young readers. There were a few disturbing parts that had us on edge toward the end and even as an adult, I found it gripping. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible are a pair of retired actresses who live in the flat under Coraline's. They own many aging Scotties and talk in theater jargon, often referencing their glory days as actresses. In the Other World, they are youthful and perform continuously in front of many different dogs, who, in the Other World, are anthropomorphic.

This isn’t a remotely teachy or preachy book, but Coraline learns a lot about life, familial love, and especially herself. She finds bravery she didn’t know she had, but she faces temptation as well. “ The other mother loved her… as a dragon loves gold.” The other mother offers her everything she thinks she wants. But there is a price, and Coraline has a Eureka moment, and declares: Coraline, not Caroline, thank you, the little girl who was small for her age, and found herself in darkest danger was the subject of Neil Gaiman’s 2002 publication, which was in Gaiman’s own words “refreshingly creepy.” I am already looking forward to reading Coraline again. So far, I have read three works by Neil Gaiman, and they have all been stellar. Is it possible for him to write any bad books? I guess I will have to find out. I love the way Gaiman takes on fairy tale attributes here. Keys and mirrors are frequent in the book, and Coraline literally enters a mirror world at the risk of being trapped there forever. She also has three neighbors who she visits on both sides of the mirror, and cycles of 3 is a common motif in fairy tale narratives. He toys around with tropes in humorous ways to fit his themes of self-identity, such as in the mirror world where her neighbor can actually call her by the correct name but she is then told by the cat that names are meaningless. ‘ Now you people have names,’ he tells her, ‘ that's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.’ The idea of naming something in a fairy tale often means taking power over it, but here we see names as a placeholder until we can have power over ourselves. Clever riffing on fairy tale logic is part of what makes Coraline such a sheer delight. I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn't mean anything? What then?”I listened to the audiobook with the full cast production on the recommendation of a Goodreads friend. This version truly does give a theatrical feel to the story and an elevated listening experience. Thanks, Melissa ~ Bantering Books!

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” For adults these things are harder. And it's doubly hard for me these days. My life has changed so much over the last five years, and my previously established metric for friendship doesn't work very well any more. Oot pauses for a moment then, and I realize that this has been the point of the whole conversation. He wants to send Neil Gaiman a message. For tea she went down to see Misses Spink and Forcible. She had three digestive biscuits, a glass of limeade, and a cup of weak tea. The limeade was very interesting. It didn't taste anything like limes. It tasted bright green and vaguely chemical. Coraline liked it enormously. She wished they had it at home. That brought me up short. For Oot, that's a simple question. If you meet someone and play with them, they're you're friend. Easy.Her voice did not just come from her mouth. It came from the mist, and the fog, and the house, and the sky.” Tl;dr - A delightful, very creepy and haunting story that will have both adults and children turning on the nightlights after darkness falls. A great, smart heroine who takes the initiative and acts with purpose. Highly recommended. what does the old man mean when he says he has a message from the mice that says Don't go through the door? and what do Miss Spink and Miss Forcible mean when they say she is in danger when they see her tea leaves? what kind of danger is this? Read by the author - woohoo! As much as I grumble about some of his books, there's no denying that he's absolutely fabulous to listen to - this man could read a grocery list and I'd give it a listen. The creep factor is so immense thanks to Gaiman's writing skills and him seemingly wanting to traumatize people, the clever and first peaceful way, by generating more and more suspense until it escalates without much real violence. It´s more the permanent feeling of something being terribly wrong, more and more disturbing signs appearing, and the final realization of the protagonist what really is behind the seemingly better reality. So one message could be to

Little things in the book I love. For instance, Coraline hates "real food" (what she calls 'recipes') and instead lives on stuff like microwaved frozen pizza and microwaved frozen French fries. She is delighted when, while visiting the neighbors, she is served limeade.I have always loved watching horror or creepy movies since I was a kid so when I was a kid I watched Coraline movie. I wasn't born as a reader, so I didn't read the book first before watching the movie :( and I loved it so much! I still remember those days when I watched the movie and I felt my heart pounded so hard inside my chest and it was actually one of my favorite movies. I watched it all over again and again and I even watched it again with my best friend and she totally loved it too. So months ago I decided to read the book because I loved the movie when I was a kid and I liked the book so much! it was my first book in 2017. the story was really interesting and I should have read this book sooner! the illustrations in this book are so amazing and they're cute but some of them are scary too, which are SOO AMAZING. The cat is perhaps my favourite character of all. Gaiman knows cats well; they appear elsewhere in his works. And this one is the genuine article: superior, stand-offish, wilful, easily offended, and yet a true friend. Seriously creepy and disturbing book. You might want to vet this for your children if you worry about that sort of thing. When I say "Stephen King for children," I am not joking. This book is dark and full of very disturbing and unsettling images. It was awarded the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novella, the 2003 Nebula Award for Best Novella, and the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers.