Coraline

Coraline

Neil Gaiman

©2002

163 Pages

Ages 9-12

Summary

Coraline is the the remarkable adventure of a little girl who wanted more excitement in her life. Coraline particularly liked exploring. She enjoyed exploring the out doors and was therefore at a loss as to what she should do when the rain trapped her inside of her new house. As suggested by her father, she took to exploring the house, counting how many things were blue, the windows, and the doors. Upon further investigation, she discovered that all of the doors in the flat opened except for one. When she got her mother to open it, there was nothing but a brick wall on the other side. At night, however, she found that the brick wall vanished and was actually a passage to her other world. Strangely enough, the "other world" resembled her real world with several significant improvements. Everything was more interesting and everyone loved her and wanted her there. Her other mother in particular wanted her to stay with her always and forever. She told Coraline that all she had to do was to allow the other mother to sew buttons into her eyes. Coraline refused and ran back to her real world. However, she was forced to return upon discovering that the other mother abducted her real parents. Coraline struck up a wager with the other mother: they would play a game. If Coraline won then she, her parents, and the souls of the other children she had imprisoned would be freed from "other world." If she lost, Coraline would stay and allow the other mother to care for and love her forever. Coraline set out to find the souls of the three children and completed each of the three tasked she faced. She realized that even if she found her parents, the other mother would never let her go home. Coraline found her parents in a snow globe but did not reveal her knowledge to the other mother, instead tricking her into opening the door to the real world and escaping through it. Coraline set free the souls of the children and released her parents from the snow globe. It would seem like all her nightmares were over except for the fact that one of the hands of the other mother had followed her through the door and was out to get the only key to the door between the worlds. Coraline tricked it into falling down an old well and through the key in after it. The door would stay locked forever.

Other Books by the Author:

Stardust

The Graveyard Book

Never Where

American Gods

M is for Magic