geri_chan | The Graveyard Book wins a Newbery, and interesting werewolf lore...

Posting this a little late, but congratulations to Neil Gaiman for winning this year's Newbery Medal (an award for the year's best children's book) for The Graveyard Book! If you read the above link to his blog, you'll find that he's so humble that it's cute: he gets called at 5:45 in the morning by the chair of the Newbery Committee, and he thinks, "Oh. Newbery. Right. Cool. I may be an honors book or something." ^__^ No, Neil, you are not the runner-up--you are the winner, and you bloody well deserve it! It's fantastic book--very humorous and compelling, and I love it that a children's book dares to start off with an entire family being murdered (except for the baby, who becomes the protagonist of the book)! And yet, it's not at all depressing--Bod has a very loving, if rather unusual, surrogate family in the ghosts (and one vampire) who take care of him in the graveyard where he has taken refuge, and he's a very happy and curious child. See also my original rec for the book.

Also, there was an interesting little gem about werewolves that Neil created in his book; warning: contains SPOILERS!

We meet a werewolf character in the book, and she explains to Bod that werewolves call themselves "the hounds of God," because they believe that their gift of transformation was given to them by God, and in return, they hunt down evildoers, pursuing them relentlessly, "even to the gates of Hell". I really loved that contrast to the usual werewolf portrayal (as in Harry Potter), where werewolves are evil, or at best, unfortunate victims of an evil curse. I love the idea of werewolves who are proud of what they are, and consider their powers a God-given gift. I am not sure this concept would translate to the HP universe, since Gaiman's werewolves seem to be able to change at will and aren't compelled to bite and pass on their curse as the HP werewolves are. But the Wolfsbane Potion certainly makes their curse manageable, and it would be interesting to see a werewolf pack or cult arise, where they embrace their powers and try to use them for good--or on a darker note, become vigilantes.

Oh, and he announced on his Today Show interview, where the Newbery and Caldecott (which goes to the best-illustrated children's book of the year) award winners were being presented, that The Graveyard Book is being made into a movie, and will be directed by Neil Jordan. And one of his other books, Coraline, has already been made into a movie and should be in theaters soon--I just saw a trailer for it on TV last night!

Neil, you are full of awesome sauce! ^_^