The Graveyard Book
In our life, people are buried in the graveyard after death. The graveyard is a quite place that no one likes to pass it at night. Especially since someone talks about the graveyard, we get scaring imaginative pictures in our mind. However, there is one peculiar graveyard which comes from The Graveyard Book that is not scaring people. It is not only talking about the death, but also talking about the beginning of love and hope.
Neil Richard Gaiman was born 10 November 1960 in England. He is an English author of science fiction, fantasy short stories, novels, graphic novels, comics, audio theatre, and films. Many of his works got awards, such as the Hugo, Newberry, Bram Stoker, and Nebula awards. Coraline is one of the most popular works by Neil Gaiman. In early 198os, his first professional short story was published in Imagine Magazine. At that time, he was 23. Later on, he continued to write some comics and graphic novels. His writing style is always not very complex, his setting and the stories are told very natural that it just likes fairy tale. (Wikipedia.org). “The Graveyard Book” is also one of Gaiman’s famous books.
Gainman’s “The Graveyard Book” talks about a normal boy, whose is called Nobody Owens ‘Bod’. Bod is adopted by the ghosts who are in the graveyard. Bod’s relatives were killed by a man name is Jack, when he was one year old. Therefore, the cemetery becomes Bod’s new home, school and playgrounds. Gradually, he has learned beautiful hand writing because he has been copying the words is from tombstone; he is good at history because he has a lot of ‘ghost friends’ who teach him the different time period of history. Bod also learns some supernatural skills, such as Faded, Sliding and Dreamwalkinig. He is happy to live with the ghosts. However, the thing which Bod feels happiest about that he has a ‘living’ friend—Scarlett. They have fun together and Scarlett tells Bod what is happening in the outside world. At sometime, Bod meets a witch named Liza Hempstock. Bod knows that she doesn’t have a tombstone, and in order to find a tombstone, Bod decides to leave the graveyard. Unfortunately, he is found by man Jack when he is trying to buy a tombstone. Later, Bod doesn’t know that man Jack followed him to the graveyard. Bod realizes that it’s dangerous to leave the cemetery without any protections. At the end of the story, Bod uses all skills which he has learned in the cemetery to prevail against man Jack. One of the man Jack is taken by the Indigo Man who lives in the graveyard hole. In the end, Bod leaves the graveyard where he has lived fifteen years. In short, this is an inspirational story which talks about love, courage and growth from the graveyard.
The child psychology is a main point in this book. The little boy is growing up in the graveyard, and he is raised by ghosts. His behavior is different from other kids at the beginning of story. A famous psychologist William James says that an infant is as “beautiful flowers, haste and confusion of the period when they are coming to this world." William James is born January 11, 1842 and died in August 26, 1910 in the New York City. His books are influence on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and the philosophy of pragmatism. Therefore, he usually thought as a father of psychology that he is a “founder of psychology’s first two great ‘school’” (webspace.ship.edu). Indeed, most parents do not fully understand the ability of infants in their early years. In many parents’ minds, newborn babies are very incompetent in their skills and they are silly and naive. Most parents talk about education of newborns after their children can walk. In this book, Bod is not the same as normal children. His ‘relatives’ treat him as a big boy. When he was one year old, he lived in the graveyard which is cold and dark, and he ate food that was put in the crypt from Silas. There was no carousel and toys that he could play with. In real life, the kids who are one or two years old would have a lot of different toys to play with. And their parents would bring them to the amusement park. It should be fun in that period of time. But Bod only has ghost parents to stay with him. Normally, kids would go to kindergarten to learn more knowledge outside home when they are five years old. They start to make friends and learn how to communicate with each other. Children, who are ‘five-year-olds are cheerful, energetic, and enthusiastic. They enjoy planning, and spend a great deal of time discussing who will do what. They especially enjoy dramatic play, usually with other children. Five-year-olds are more sensitive to the needs and feelings of others around them. It is less difficult for them to wait for a turn or to share toys and material. "Best friends" become very important.’ (NNCC.ORG). However, when Bod was five year old, he started to be educated in supernatural skill-Faded, writing and reading skills by the ghosts. His guardian asked him to practice those skills during the day time, and he went to read all gravestones. The happiest thing for Bod was that he met his first human friend Scarlett and he brought her to venture in the graveyard. He loved venture everywhere. Also, he liked to share with Scarlett what he had learned and saw in the graveyard. Bod was easy to get to angry and upset even though he thought his ghost family of members didn’t like him. For example, after Scarlett and Silas went to another place, Bod was sad and he thought to leave the graveyard. However, he didn’t get agreement from his ‘parent’. And he didn’t know why he couldn’t get a promise to go out. At that time, Bod’s attitude already showed that his mental age was around eleven or twelve year old child. There were some different ways to indicate that Bod was an abnormal boy.
Comparing Bod and Scarlett, Bod was a brave boy. He never yielded to fear or problems. For instance, when Bod and Scarlett went to the hole, there was an Indigo Man who talked to them, he had a horrible voice that it made Scarlett scared. At that moment, Scarlett said “did you hear that?” and Bod answered, “nothing horrible is going to happen”, he asked back to the Indigo Man that “you can’t touch us,” and “all you can do is scare.” (Chapter 2) Those sentences showed an outstanding courage in a five years old child. It was impossible for a normal child, when they met some fearful thing to act braves, they would be scared, just liked Scarlett. She lived in a happy family with her father and mother. Also she went to school to study with her classmates. She was smart but coward. From Bod and Scarlett’s personality, it made a bright contrast about the normal and abnormal children. From the part of child psychology, it tells us that the environment may indeed change the personality of people. They can’t change the environment but themselves. It needs time to change.
In conclusion, either human being or ghosts are fully unselfish love in
the world, they would provide a good condition for kids. In this story, it contains an extraordinary power of love, so that it exudes a dark cemetery with a colorful road of glory moving, but it also deeply hidden in the heart of the gentle and the courage to show the unlimited life.
Works Cited
Gaiman, Neil
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gaiman>
Smith, William
M.S. Oesterreich, Lesia “Ages & Stages- Five Year Olds.” NNCC.ORG Level 2 -Iowa State University Extension: February 1995. Print - 296 pages
<http://www.nncc.org/Child.Dev/ages.stages.5y.html>
Gaiman, Neil “The Graveyard Book” 1st Edition, United State of America: Sept 30. 2008. Chapter 2
