The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

This book won the Newbery Award, and I gave it a rating of four out of five. A one-year-old boy's family is murdered, and he finds refuge from the murderer in a cemetery. The ghosts of people buried there decide to protect him and raise him within the fences of the graveyard. Since no one knows his real name, he grows up being called Nobody Owens, or Bod for short. Bod is taught his lessons by various ghosts, and he learns some ghostly powers that come in handy. He makes some unapproved trips into the human world, and they all end up as problems. It's predictable that the murderer will return to kill Bod during the climax.

The idea of ghosts raising a child as their own was quite interesting. Bod was very happy living with them, but he became curious of the outside world. The adventures were entertaining, but the main conflict with the murderer seemed to be forgotten for too long. His return came later in the plot, and I would have liked to have seen it developed more. Overall, I enjoyed the book very much.

Lexile level from lexile.com is 820.