The Graveyard Book

I'm not entirely sure what this post is supposed to be about, so I hope I'm on the right track.

From the novels we've read so far, The Graveyard Book probably falls somewhere in the middle on my scale. I liked it, and even laughed sometimes, but I think it would have been better if the ending had been different.

At first I thought the idea of a living child being brought up by ghosts and other mythical creatures was crazy, but then I found it endearing. I felt really bad for Bod, aka Nobody--just the name sounds so alone (well, obviously). This poor kid has no idea what it's like to be alive or how to live. The only part of the ending I liked was this aspect. Bod leaving the cemetery after slowly losing the ability to see/hear the dead was sad. Here he's leaving everything he's known, and he has hardly an idea of what to expect. I don't know what Silas is thinking, just letting him go off on his own without any kind of guidance. I barely understand how things work right now.

My favorite moment, though, was probably the scenes when Bod was in school or dealing with the bullies. I want to call it his brave innocence.

As to why I wasn't a fan of the ending was how rushed it seemed. One second we're dealing with life and then Jack and his super secret ancient society is chasing down Bod and Scarlet. Um, what? All of sudden we're dealing with the Jack of All Trades, and I actually started laughing at the name. But then again it is for kids around 10 years old.

Before class on Thursday that I found about Neil Gaiman talking about writing this book. I like hearing the inspiration and the process of writing it, so I thought other people might like it, too.