Although The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman technically isn’t teen fiction, I’m still going to recommend it here because I loved it and I think other readers will love it too. The novel starts with a sinister fellow, “the man Jack,” breaking into a London home in the middle of the night and quickly and quietly killing three of the four sleeping family members. (Don’t worry, squeamish readers, there is no description of the murders.) Jack’s job is to kill all four inhabitants of the house, but when he makes his way to the baby’s crib, Jack finds that his quarry has fled. How hard can it be to catch a toddler? Well, harder than one would think. The toddler has toddled his way out of the house, down the hill and to the gates of a local graveyard. There he meets the ghost Mrs. Owens, who decides to raise the baby with the help of the many deceased graveyard inhabitants and Silas, a not-dead/not-living being of great power. Dubbed “Nobody Owens,” or “Bod,” for short, the toddler grows up in a most unusual way—learning his lessons from the long departed, mastering the ability to fade from view, and moving through solid objects. Of course, these abilities usually only work in the confines of the graveyard, which Bod has been told never to leave. Only within the cemetery is Bod safe. But as he grows older, he finds himself yearning to see more of the world and also to find out all he can about the assassin who murdered his family.

Neil Gaiman has written a wonderful book. The cast of characters will appeal to many and varied readers. I especially liked Silas, the taciturn and well-respected guardian, as well as a side character named Miss Luprescu. Bod was a likable main character and I enjoyed seeing him age throughout the book. I especially enjoyed his first experience in a regular school--where Bod finds he is not able to fade into the background when he encounters a couple of bullies. In this book Gaiman has invented several typically (and thus wonderful) Gaiman-esque creatures, my favorite being The Sleer, a supernatural creature that guards an ancient tomb. In addition we get to hear about ghouls and ghoul-gates, werewolves, witches, and an evil ancient order. Who doesn’t like all that? Oh, I almost forgot to mention the beautiful artwork by Dave McKean. It’s been a little while since I read a book with illustrations, and I very much liked McKean’s. Gaiman thanks both his illustrators in the acknowledgements and now I am curious to see what the British version of the book looks like.

So, maybe this isn’t teen fiction (although the book ends with Bod in his teenage years), but it’s a satisfying novel that I would recommend for readers from 5th or 6th grade to teens to adults.