Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1922341 in Books
• Published on: 2002-07-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Library Binding
• 176 pages

From Amazon.com
Coraline lives with her preoccupied parents in part of a huge old house--a house so huge that other people live in it, too... round, old former actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and their aging Highland terriers ("We trod the boards, luvvy") and the mustachioed old man under the roof ("'The reason you cannot see the mouse circus,' said the man upstairs, 'is that the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed.'") Coraline contents herself for weeks with exploring the vast garden and grounds. But with a little rain she becomes bored--so bored that she begins to count everything blue (153), the windows (21), and the doors (14). And it is the 14th door that--sometimes blocked with a wall of bricks--opens up for Coraline into an entirely alternate universe. Now, if you're thinking fondly of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, you're on the wrong track. Neil Gaiman's Coraline is far darker, far stranger, playing on our deepest fears. And, like Roald Dahl's work, it is delicious.

What's on the other side of the door? A distorted-mirror world, containing presumably everything Coraline has ever dreamed of... people who pronounce her name correctly (not "Caroline"), delicious meals (not like her father's overblown "recipes"), an unusually pink and green bedroom (not like her dull one), and plenty of horrible (very un-boring) marvels, like a man made out of live rats. The creepiest part, however, is her mirrored parents, her "other mother" and her "other father"--people who look just like her own parents, but with big, shiny, black button eyes, paper-white skin... and a keen desire to keep her on their side of the door. To make creepy creepier, Coraline has been illustrated masterfully in scritchy, terrifying ink drawings by British mixed-media artist and Sandman cover illustrator Dave McKean. This delightful, funny, haunting, scary as heck, fairy-tale novel is about as fine as they come. Highly recommended. (Ages 11 and older) --Karin Snelson

Chronique amazon.fr
Coraline vient de déménager et découvre son environnement, une étrange maison qu'elle et ses parents partagent avec des voisins peu communs : deux anciennes actrices et un vieux toqué éleveur de souris savantes. "Je suis une exploratrice !", clame Coraline. Gare pourtant : derrière la porte condamnée, un monde magique et effrayant l'attend.

Attention, grand frisson. En lisant ce livre, on a l'impression de regarder un film d'horreur d'autant plus horrible que sa bande-son serait une petite chanson enfantine répétitive et lancinante. Cette petite merveille renoue magistralement avec la pure tradition du conte de fées, merveilleux et terrifiant, mêlant avec raffinement naïveté et cruauté. On a peur, comme Coraline : pas vraiment, parce qu'on n'est pas dans le réel. Et, en même temps, on en est tellement près qu'on a peur quand même… Mais on y prend un énorme plaisir. L'écriture de Neil Gaiman est magnifique, simple et subtile, alliant une narration qui semble couler de source, un sens du détail et un art de l'image délectables. C'est assez complexe pour être irracontable, assez limpide pour être lu dès 9 ans… et relu à l'infini avec la même fascination. Un pur chef-d'œuvre dans la tradition de Lewis Carrol. La nouvelle Alice s'appelle Coraline. À partir de 10 ans. --Pascale Wester

Books in Canada
Gaiman is a master fantasist and in his first book for children he plays on folk and fairy motifs to create a chillingly macabre tale of adventure. A supposedly blocked-in door, in fact, takes Coraline into a sinister otherworld ruled by the soul-snatching "other mother" who, for centuries, has been luring children into the darkness of her empty empire. Coraline is on a dangerous quest to find her parents, held captive by the "other mother" and is aided by a large black cat, a trio of shadow children and a mysterious stone that allows her to see lost souls. Gaiman is certainly inventive and readers will long remember the "other mother's" black-button eyes but there isn't quite enough meat on the bones of this slim novel to make it a really satisfying fictional fare. Coraline is clever and entertaining but compared to Gaiman's Neverwhere and Stardust, it lacks the substance of his earlier fictions.
Jeffrey Canton (Books in Canada)