Coraline

Written by Neil Gaiman

Illustrated by Dave McKean

HarperCollins Publishers 2002

176 pages

Fantasy

 

                                I chose to blog about this book because it is one that I read in middle school. This story is very different and also a little scary. Coraline moves into a new house with her family. She finds a secret door that leads to a magic place that looks just like her house, but it is very different from her normal home. People in the other place have buttons for eyes and act strange.There are another set of parents almost exactly like her real parents that want Coraline to come stay with them forever. Coraline will have to fight to escape and make it back home.
                              The illustrations for this book appear to be done with pencils and ink. The illustrator gave the pictures that creepy, scary vibe. The pictures are dark and gloomy which is brought out well with the dark ink and pencil. This book has no awards.
                               This could be used in the classroom for students when they have extra time to read for pleasure. You could also get your class to imagine they had a magic door in their home that could take them to a secret place and get them to write about that place and to draw a picture with it. Another activity you could do would be to create a chart and write students names in the categories for who would go into a secret door/wouldn't go into a secret door if they ever found one.