Two mini reviews for Halloween Reads today- of Modern Classics that should be read by every kid! (Though I’d say Oyster Boy is for more of eleven plus. It’s a bit grim). I’ve loved both of these for years, and re-read them for this October…
Coraline is one of those beautiful children’s books that you’ll want to curl up with at any age. It’s engaging, funny, and imaginative- perfect for anyone! Coraline is a really relatable character, as a young teenage girl who’s a bit too lonely and often ignored or misheard. I loved reading (and re-reading) her rather scary story! It was, strangely, even eerier reading this as a thirteen-and-a-half year old, as opposed to a nine-year-old.The plot was dramatic and tense, full of scary thoughts on a parallel universe. It’s a quick read, Coraline- I think I would have loved it even more than I already do if it had been longer, more detailed, more explained.
Parts skipped ahead very, very quickly, and also, unless you’ve watched the movie, parts aren’t explained as well. OH, and I didn’t realise how different the book was to the story! Wybie, the male character in the movie, isn’t in the book, though I thought I remembered him being there. I loved Wybie! Apart from that, a great spooky story to curl up with! Plus, it’s full of Dave McKean’s awesome illustrations, so that is a bonus.
The Melancholy Death Of Oyster Boy And Other Stories is a ridiculously long title. Here on it’s referred to as Oyster Boy.
Anyway! Oyster Boy is a poetic oddity, by Tim Burton. Until Dad bought me this a few years ago, I had no idea my favourite director wrote poetry! All of these poems in this slim little book follow a theme, though it’s not so visible in some: all of the pieces follow children, or people, who are different from everyone else and so things mostly end badly. By different… I mean a boy who’s half microwave, a penguin boy, a matchstick boy, a girl with ten eyes, and an oyster boy, to name a few. Burton has created loveable yet freaky characters, who you can sympathize with despite their general freakiness. The poems are all brilliant, but very simple four-line stanzas. As a poetry fan, or a horror fan, you’ll love these! They’re great to curl up with on Halloween, as they’re eerie but also uplifting, sometimes.
My Ratings:
to Coraline
to Oyster Boy
both books were bought for me as Halloween presents, years ago, and were picked up for re-reads!
Goodreads Synopsis: When the dead come back to haunt the living, Lockwood & Co. step in . . .
Goodreads Synopsis: B has spent the last few months bunking with the Angels, a group of teens dedicated to eradicating the evil dead from the face of the earth, beginning with the undead roaming the abandoned wreckage that was once London.
DOLL BONES (by Holly Black, published by Random House) 
Goodreads Synopsis: A boy named Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments, losing his life as the pounding sea claims him. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is that possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he here? And where is this place? It looks like the suburban English town where he lived as a child, before an unthinkable tragedy happened and his family moved to America. But the neighborhood around his old house is overgrown, covered in dust, and completely abandoned. What’s going on? And why is it that whenever he closes his eyes, he falls prey to vivid, agonizing memories that seem more real than the world around him? Seth begins a search for answers, hoping that he might not be alone, that this might not be the hell he fears it to be, that there might be more than just this. . . .
Goodreads Synopsis: First the sickness rotted the adults’ minds. Then their bodies. Now they stalk the streets, hunting human flesh.
Goodreads Synopsis: The sickness destroyed everyone over the age of fourteen. All across London diseased adults are waiting, hungry predators with rotten flesh and ravaged minds.
Goodreads synopsis: ‘I spend all of my daylight hours in this musty old cellar now. It’s woeful, and I bet it smelled this bad even before everything turned to crap. Great. My second sentence and I’ve already resorted to swear words. When I decided I’d start this diary (five minutes ago) I thought it would be my poetic and deeply-moving goodbye to the world. Maybe I’d write about love and loss, or maybe even the splendour of nature. Then, if anyone ever found it, at least I’d have left something to be remembered by. As well as my corpse, of course.
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