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.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780747562108ISBN:0747562105
Description: Very Good. Very good, never read-books may have a tear, creasing, or other small defect. Generally, very good condition. No.1 BESTSELLERS-great prices, friendly customer service-usually dispatched within 24 hrs. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780747597308ISBN:0747597308
Description: Good. Our aim is to create value for our customers through the provision of low cost, affordable products and an overall satisfying buying experience. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780747562108ISBN:0747562105
Description: New. Brand new books, maps and cd's available immediately from a reputable and well rated UK bookseller; despatched promptly and reliably worldwide. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780747562108ISBN:0747562105
Description: Fine. Minor rubbing to edges and extremities, otherwise unread. Next working day dispatch from the UK. Please contact us with any queries. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780747562108ISBN:0747562105
Description: Fine. Minor bumping to edges and extremities, otherwise brand new & unread. Next working day dispatch from the UK. Please contact us with any queries. read more
Edition: First English Edition; First Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Bloomsbury, London
Date Published: 2002
Description: Good+ in Good+ dust jacket. A few faint marks to front endpaper. Light tanning to page edges. No previous ownership markings. Pictorial boards clean and tidy. Crease to one corner on front which look to be a manufacturing fault. Jacket has some shelf and edgewear. Not price-clipped. Pictures available on request.; 8vo 8"-9" tall; 171 pages. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780747594062ISBN:0747594066
Description: Fine. Minor rubbing to edges and extremities, otherwise unread. Next working day dispatch from the UK. Please contact us with any queries. read more
Description: Fine in Fine dust jacket. 0747558531. HInt of tanning to margins, tiny nick top top of spine. A very clean, tight, fresh copy; 0.71 x 7.8 x 5.2 Inches. read more
Edition: FILM TIE-IN ED
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780747597308ISBN:0747597308
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 192 pages. Tie-in edition of the animated feature directed by henry selick, director of tim burton's the nightmare before christmas, with a cast including teri hatcher, ian mcshane, dawn french, jennifer saunders and dakota fanning illustrations edition film tie-in ed (Paperback) read more
Edition: NEW ED
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING PLC Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780747562108ISBN:0747562105
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 192 pages. (192 pages) when a girl ventures through a hidden door she finds a secret world with shocking similarities to her own. illustrations edition new ed (Paperback) 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
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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