Raised in a Graveyard

This book is about forward motion, about growing up and having hopes and dreams. The Graveyard Book begins with a family’s gruesome murder. All but the baby, the reason for the massacre, die.  The precocious toddler survives because of his curiosity.  He walks out the front door because it has never been wide open for him and he wondered what was out there.  Ultimately, he ends up in a foggy graveyard populated by ghosts, the dead trapped by the bounds of the graveyard for eternity always the same as the day they died.  A kind, motherly woman takes him in and fights for his acceptance in the graveyard since raising a human child is unheard of.  Outsiders can’t even see the ghosts unless they are given the freedom of the graveyard, which is another rarity, but it has been done once before.  

Illustration from the book by Dan McKean.

     Even in death the ghosts have a social hierarchy.  The longest dead are the most important and their opinions carry the most weight.  The oldest man dates back to the Roman occupation and he is against raising the child.  There are a number of reasons this will not work: they cannot leave the grounds for food and supplies, no proper living place, and the all important one is dead people raising a child.  See the whole being stuck exactly the way you died is no way to raise a child.  The dead have no goals.  They exist in a grim mimic of life, where their day is night, no eating, no jobs, but they do socialize.  Plus, the child could only play with children ghosts, which makes for a lonely existence.  

Personal photography by Charity Troy.  Taken in a Syracuse, NY graveyard.

     A mysterious man steps into the argument and advocates for the child staying because he is in danger.  This figure is allowed to leave the graveyard and he promises to take care of the child’s outside needs.  He becomes a guardian and mentor to the renamed Nobody Owens, Bod for short.  The boy has two parents and as good older parents, they protect him from scary truths like why he is not supposed to roam certain overgrown areas of the graveyard or why he’s not supposed to talk to a witch inhabitant.  But the guardian gives Bod straight answers and doesn’t keep things from him.  His parents lies usually lead to curiosity and then trouble anyway.  

Another illustration by Dan McKean.

     The boy goes on several adventures some normal, mostly supernatural.  Despite being mostly free to do what he wants, he pleads to learn, so his mentor brings him books and teaches him to read.  Bod has various homeschool teachers until he finally pleads to go to real school where adventures ensue and he takes on a bully.

By Charity Troy

     Bod cannot know any living person because he is in danger although no one knows why except the guardian.  I will not spoil the book any further.  You will jus have to read to find out why Bod was in danger and experience his adventures of being raised in a graveyard.

By Charity Troy

     Neil Gaiman turns the sadness of death into an acceptable reality with a comfortable afterlife.  This book gives a child (and even adults) a nice little afterlife to imagine all their family and friends.  It shoves death in the reader’s face from the very beginning and makes death an unavoidable life occurrence which doesn’t need to be incredibly sad.  This book is all about death, but really more about life and growing, being free to explore and learn.  

By Charity Troy

     This story is about curiosity saving a child. The boy just escapes death because he is curious about what is on the other side of a door and he keeps wandering, just taking in everything but the danger because, you know, he is a baby.  Nobody’s curiosity spills over into the joy of reading as an escape from loneliness (something this only child knows something about).  His curiosity takes him into an ancient tomb where he discovers the true oldest inhabitant of the graveyard going all the way back to the Druids.  This knowledge eventually saves his life and makes for a happy-ish ending.  This endless sense of curiosity not only takes Bod on adventures but gives him something to hope for, which serves to give a person purpose.  Being curious means you are not letting life pass you by like what the dead have to endure.  A curious person sees something out of the ordinary or interesting and a really good curious person finds out more.  This curiosity is essential to succeeding at anything because if you are not interested you will not engage, won’t enjoy the process, and will not take any knowledge or lesson from the experience.  Even graveyards are good places to explore because there are hundreds of unique and often important people buried there.  Each person experiences their own struggles of light and dark, which makes the past and present world interesting and worth the adventure.  Keep wondering and wandering. 

And to top of this post, a painting I did in honor of graveyards everywhere: