“Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house.” — First sentence
Coraline by Neil Gaiman is a children’s story, but it is a rather dark one. I loved it.
Coraline is a little girl who lives with her parents in a huge old house, along with other people who share it. Those other people are two old former actresses named Miss Spink and Miss Forcible who own three dogs, and an old man Coraline calls ‘the crazy old man’.
She loves to explore her surroundings. Her parents usually don’t bother with her, and she often feels bored. One day, while exploring the house, she stumbles upon a locked door in the drawing room. With her mother’s help, she opens the door, only to find a brick wall. Her mother explains why. Still, she is curious, and later she tries again to open it by herself, and this time, lo and behold, the brick wall is no longer there!
Gaiman takes us, readers, into an adventure—a dark and strange adventure—where Coraline finds herself in another place that looks very much like her home. There she meets her other mother and other father. Her other mother sounds almost like her real mother, but she looks strange with black buttons as eyes. Her other features are quite eerie too. Her other mother wants her to stay there forever and promises to love her. Even the food she cooks for Coraline tastes much better than it did back home. For a moment, Coraline seems to be enjoying herself with all the attention lavished on her.
Later, Coraline discovers her real parents are trapped and, more than that, she also finds the souls of three other children trapped too. Coraline, being the courageous girl she is, begins plotting her parents’ rescue and helps find the souls of the three children. She’s not alone in this arduous task, for a black cat helps her. Remember Miss Spink and Miss Forcible? They, too, have helped her by giving her something before all of that happened. They read Coraline’s future using tea leaves during one of Coraline’s visits.
This is an interesting read and definitely creepy. I don’t know what I would do if I were Coraline. Would I be brave enough to set my fears aside and face evil head-on? The story will make us appreciate our loved ones and what we have. Dave McKean’s illustrations definitely help visualise the story. Read this and be spooked and charmed at the same time!
