Thursday, November 06, 2008

Neil Gaiman and the Graveyard Book

The London Free Press recently did an interview with Neil Gaiman on the genesis of his most recent, The Graveyard Book. Apparently it was a long time comin'.
Gaiman went up to his office and started trying to write it. “I read the first page,” he laughs gently, “and I thought, ‘This is a better idea than I am a writer. So I will put the idea away until I’m a better writer.’”
The weird thing (at least to me) is that they keep referring to it as YA in the article. To be honest, I didn't see The Graveyard Book as YA. Would teens enjoy it? Yeah, sure, especially if they're already Gaiman fans.

But I saw it as a middle-grade novel--admittedly one with a rather more traumatic beginning than you usually see, but this is the same group we make read Where the Red Fern Grows, so I don't exactly see the objection. Gaiman himself admits that he has 10-year-olds reading it. So wherefore the YA? Possibly it gets slightly more respect than "children's book." Who knows.

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