Winner of the prestigious Teenage Book of the Year Award 2009.

Winner of Best Novel at the Hugo Awards 2009

Winner of the 2009 prestigious Newbery Medal.

Spooks galore in this brilliant and fantastic story of life in the graveyard. When Baby Bod escapes a murderer intent on killing his whole family, he is taken in by the graveyard ghosts. A stunningly original novel deftly constructed over eight chapters, each of which depicts every other year of Bod’s life, a separate story of Bod’s life unfolds and always in the background there is the sinister, haunting presence of a killer. Bod’s curious tale is a masterpiece of original, absorbing and unstoppable story telling. This edition is illustrated in a breath-taking fashion by Dave Mckean.

In January 2009 Neil Gaiman won American's most prestigious children's fiction prize, the Newbery medal, for his novel The Graveyard Book.

27th January 2009 - Gaiman was asleep in bed in Los Angeles this morning when he was phoned by the award's committee and told he had won. 'You are on a speakerphone with at least 14 teachers and librarians and suchlike great, wise and good people, I thought. Do not start swearing like you did when you got the Hugo. This was a wise thing to think because otherwise huge, mighty and four-letter swears were gathering. I mean, that's what they're for,' Gaiman wrote on his blog after the call.

Gaiman's The Graveyard book is the story of Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, who lives in a graveyard and is raised by ghosts. The Newbery, which picks 'the most distinguished American children's book published the previous year', has been criticised in recent weeks for being out of touch with its readers; the choice of Gaiman - a perennial bestseller - as winner, puts paid to claims that the judges favoured books with a limited appeal.

Named in honour of 18th-century British bookseller John Newbery, the award was founded in 1922, with previous winners including children's classics such as Hugh Lofting's The Voyages of Dr Dolittle, Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and Lloyd Alexander's The High King.

'I might have imagined all of this, or they may have to do a sudden recount or something,' wrote Gaiman. 'But I think it probably happened. I mean, it's now 7:20am and I'm drinking tea and blinking happily at the world.'

 

Titles on this year’s Teenage Book of the Year Award shortlist include:

Auslander by Paul Dowswell

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray

The Ant Colony by Jenny Valentine

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

Synopsis

Winner of the Newbery Medal. When a baby escapes a murderer intent on killing his entire family, who would have thought it would find safety and security in the local graveyard? Brought up by the resident ghosts, ghouls and spectres, Bod has an eccentric childhood learning about life from the dead. But for Bod there is also the danger of the murderer still looking for him - after all, he is the last remaining member of the family. A stunningly original novel deftly constructed over eight chapters, featuring every second year of Bod's life, from babyhood to adolescence. Will Bod survive to be a man?

Reviews

'One of the joys of reading Gaiman is how he subverts our expectations of magic, horror, fantasy and the mundane' The Times 'Suspenseful, well-told and touching' The Sunday Times 'A captivating piece of work, light as fresh grave dirt, haunting as the inscription on a tombstone' Financial Times 'If asked to put The Graveyard Book into a genre, I'd have to say: this is a Neil Gaiman book. It's in the Genre of Excellence' Fortean Times

About the Author

Neil Gaiman, author, scriptwriter and creator of graphic novels, is British and lives in the USA. His diverse catalogue of books includes the novel The Graveyard Book, winner of the Carnegie Medal 2010 and Booktrust Teenage Prize 2009, Stardust (now a major feature film), the bestselling novel for young readers Coraline (now a major 3D-animated film), and the picture book The Wolves in the Walls, which was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Author photo © Kimberley Butler   More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation