Coraline is the kind of girl that I do not doubt any child wants to be: daring and smart. A bit too daring to be believed actually (many things she went through were too spooky for me, I mean if I am to imagine myself (a grown-up) in the same conditions I would have reacted way way way worse :) ). Her smarts are up to the par too (just look at the scene where she parted with the “other mother” last). She seems a bit more mature than her age (and her neighbors downstairs agree with me), a trait most visible when she says “What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted?” (I know lots of people who have yet to grasp this simple truth and was happy to see Coraline thinking like this, a breath of fresh air). The parents are very busy people but I had the feeling that they really loved Coraline, despite their lack of attention to her every now and then. My favorite was her father, a passionate wannabe cook (something new in books, LOL), always trying out a new recipe and never getting it right :)

The animal characters were just as interesting. It goes without saying that I have absolutely loved the black cat, especially at her most vulnerable moment (because she was acting like every cat in need of protection does and I was glad to see Coraline offering her the protection she needed). I have also loved the singing mice of the neighbor upstairs (although it is not clear to me how they did know about the door and how they managed to talk to their “human carer” about it), and the very idea of them playing their little instruments with their little pink fingers (plus the fact that they didn’t like the rain because it made their whiskers droop) was both interesting and amusing for me (although I am not into mice, those particular ones seemed quite cool :) ).

It was very captivating for me to observe the world the other mother created: the painting of a bowl of fruit becoming a painting of a bowl of eaten fruit (“all that remained in the bowl was the browning core of an apple, several plum and peach stones, and the stem of what had formerly been a bunch of grapes“); the lion-pawed table clawing at the floor; the moving toys (with feelings too); the neighbors downstairs transformed into their younger selves (“Then they unbuttoned their fluffy round coats and opened them. But their coats weren’t all that opened: their faces opened, too, like empty shells, and out of the old empty fluffy round bodies stepped two young women.“); the house losing the details and becoming a sketch, and so on.

What I liked most: So many things I have trouble choosing. To pick a random two, the quote at the beginning:

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
—G. K. Chesterton

and this:

“Oh. It’s you,” she said to the black cat.
“See?” said the cat. “It wasn’t so hard recognizing me, was it? Even without names.”
“Well, what if I wanted to call you?”
The cat wrinkled its nose and managed to look unimpressed. “Calling cats,” it confided, “tends to be a rather overrated activity. Might as well call a whirlwind.”
“What if it was dinnertime?” asked Coraline. “Wouldn’t you want to be called then?”
“Of course,” said the cat. “But a simple cry of ‘dinner!’ would do nicely. See? No need for names.”

What I liked least: Nothing. Too short a book and too charming for me to find it any fault. :)

Recommend it? Yes, absolutely, it’s very captivating and it’s quite short too.

Written by the same author:
American Gods
Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett)
The Graveyard Book
Snow, Glass, Apples
Stardust
Neverwhere

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