78 pages • 2 hours read
Neil GaimanA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
“Rattle his bones
Over the stones
It’s only a pauper
Who nobody owns.”
The novel’s epigraph derives from a traditional nursery rhyme. With it, the essence of the story about a boy who lives in a graveyard, unknown and unwanted—except by the cemetery’s ghosts—is captured. The novel contains the words of several songs, especially those sung by the ghost Mrs. Owens to her adoptive son, Bod. Each contains a lesson for the boy, couched in the love and affection of his unusual family.
“Mrs. Owens bent down to the baby and extended her arms. ‘Come now,’ she said, warmly. ‘Come to Mama.’ To the man Jack, walking through the graveyard towards them on a path, his knife already in his hand, it seemed as if a swirl of mist had curled around the child, in the moonlight, and that the boy was no longer there: just damp mist and moonlight and swaying grass.”
Mrs. Owens accepts the living child from his recently deceased mother and whisks him away into their misty world just before the man Jack can kill him. The mist becomes a protective element around the baby, foreshadowing the security he is to find in the world that cannot be seen.
“‘But,’ expostulated Josiah Worthington. ‘But. A human child. A living child. I mean. I mean, I mean. This is a graveyard, not a nursery, blast it.’”
Baronet Josiah Worthington protests that it’s not appropriate for a graveyard full of ghosts to raise a live human child. His protests, while valid, are quickly lost and show the inevitability of Bod’s path in life. The unexpected family relationship that arises between the ghosts and the little boy will change all of them.
By Neil Gaiman
American Gods
American Gods
Neil Gaiman
Anansi Boys
Anansi Boys
Neil Gaiman
Coraline
Coraline
Neil Gaiman
Fortunately, the Milk
Fortunately, the Milk
Neil Gaiman
Good Omens
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett
How to Talk to Girls at Parties
How to Talk to Girls at Parties
Neil Gaiman
Neverwhere
Neverwhere
Neil Gaiman
Norse Mythology
Norse Mythology
Neil Gaiman
October in the Chair
October in the Chair
Neil Gaiman
Odd and the Frost Giants
Odd and the Frost Giants
Neil Gaiman
Stardust
Stardust
Neil Gaiman
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Neil Gaiman
The Sandman Omnibus Vol. 1
The Sandman Omnibus Vol. 1
Neil Gaiman
The Sleeper and the Spindle
The Sleeper and the Spindle
Neil Gaiman
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection