Coraline

Another Neil Gaiman book. It's one of his books aimed at younger readers. Enjoyable, but I do prefer his books that are directed toward a more adult audience. It's fairly creepy. Part of the plot will be familiar. Young bored girl discovers an alternate world where everything seems to be better, at first. The most obvious oddity is that all the apparent humans in the alternate world have buttons sewn on for eyes. Unsurprisingly, the alternate world isn't really better, in fact it's much much worse, and the rest of the book deals with Coraline's attempts to escape/confront it. Well done, just... eh, something missing, I guess. Still, because it's Gaiman, there are some very amusing exchanges:



"We...we could be friends, you know," said Coraline.

"We could be rare specimens of an exotic breed of African dancing elephants," said the cat. "But we're not. At least," it added cattily, after darting a brief look at Coraline, "I'm not."



Coraline has called the police to report that her real parents are missing:
"I think my other mother has them both in her clutches. She may want to keep them and sew their eyes with black buttons, or she may simply have them to lure me back into reach of her fingers. I'm not sure."



At any rate, it's worth reading once. I think I'll pass it on to friends of mine with kids now. :^D