Book of the Week: Coraline

Hi. I'm back. I think I've already proven that I'm inconsistent with updates, so don't be surprised.

The first time I read this book, I was in fourth grade. It might have been on the Sequoyah Book List, but I don't really remember. What I do remember is that I read it in a single day. How did I, a lowly nine-year-old, accomplish this feat? I was terrified, that's how!

Anyway, I reread it recently at my mother's suggestion (she has a sixth sense for sniffing out instant hits). I really appreciated the themes more the second time around. Here comes the vague summary:

The book is about a little girl named Coraline. She moves into a big, old house (it's well into its second century, if I remember right). The house is divided into apartments, or flats, as the call 'em "across the pond".

Her parents are the "distracted and creative" types, and they don't really pay too much attention to her. It annoys her a lot, but she puts up with them most of the time. I get the feeling that Coraline thinks she's smarter than most adults. Her dad is always making weird food that looks like something you would feed Napoleon  Dynamite's llama, Tina, and her Mom's catchphrase is "Don't make a mess!"

Coraline has some pretty odd neighbors, too, and I bet she is, if not smarter, at least saner than they are.

There are two old ladies who live below her. They are retired actresses named Miss April Spink and Miss Miriam Forcible. They mostly did classical theatre from what I saw. They have lots of highland terriers with funny names (the one you hear about most is Hemish. No, I didn't sneeze). They also tend to argue with each other a lot. It's good-natured fretting, but still.  

There's also this guy called The-Crazy-Old-Man-Upstairs. His name is revealed at the end of the book, so I'll not say it here. Suffice it to say that this guy is foreign (possibly Russian) and definitely crazy. He smells weird and claims he has a mouse circus in his attic apartment. If that's not a certified cuckoo clock, I don't know what is.

So, one day, it's raining outside and Coraline doesn't have anything to do. She mooches around for a while, and then her dad tells her to count everything blue, find the water heater, and count all the doors and windows in the apartment. She finds:

153 blue objects
21 windows
14 doors

Of the doors she discovers, thirteen open and shut. One of them, a great big door covered in odd carvings in the corner of the fancy drawing room (where they keep her grandmother's "expensive and uncomfortable furniture") is locked. When she gets her mom to unlock it, Coraline discovers that it's bricked up.

So, exactly how does she get inside it one night and discover that a better version of her life is on the other side of the door?

That's right: "Other" parents that pay attention to her, neighbors who never get her name wrong, toys that play with her, even a talking cat!

Of course it was all too good to be true.

I won't say more than that, though. After all, when you're telling people about a book, you can't just yell, "The Other Mother is really an evil Beldam who's luring Coraline into a trap! She really wants to sew buttons in Coraline's eyes and then suck out her soul like the other kids she has locked up in a mirror!" No, you have to leave them hanging on a snappy and vague punchline that makes them want to get off their computer chair and go buy the book at a Barnes & Noble.

On a scale of 1-10 (1 is worst, 10 is best) I deem this book... well, not higher than a 9.8 because there is always room for improvement.  

Reader's Block

Hey, people! So, let's get down to brass tacks. I'm new here, obviously, but I don't feel like giving you a long sob story about my life. It isn't interesting, or creative, and you'll hear more than you want to know about how much my life sucks over the next few months.

I won't blame you if you quit reading now. In fact, I'm about to give you homework, and if that doesn't scare you off, I don't know what will.

I have been a victim of writer's block before. If you have ever been assigned an English project, or maybe a report on a famous person of your choosing, and you've had trouble deciding what to write about, then you've had it too. Lately, though, I've had a less common problem.

Reader's Block.

I call it that, because it's sort of like writer's block. My problem is not knowing what I should read next.

See, the thing is, I've read a whole lot of books. I read all the Harry Potters, and I've read other stuff too, like Pride and Prejudice and Little Women. I know that I should probably work on finishing out the Eragon series, or find out whether the gods have killed Percy Jackson yet. Still, even though I love reading stories that come in series, I think every now and then you need a break. I mean, come on, if you were on a desert island and had nothing but the Series of Unfortunate Events with you, you'd get bored with reading about the same characters.

Maybe it isn't very loyal to Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, but I want to read about something else before they get around to conquering Count Olaf and his motley crew. The thing is, I don't know where to look. I'm reading The Scarlet Pimpernel, and I'm dabbling in more Jane Austen, but I haven't really got into them.

What I mean is, when I read about Marguerite St. Just and her brother, Armand, I'm nervous for her and worried that she may never escape Chauvelin's evil clutches. But the world doesn't melt away. And I'm easily distracted, so getting through it is a long process.

I guess you could say that I'm on a hunt for the perfect book. Any thoughts?