Neil Gaiman’s Coraline features a clever 11-year-old girl who is struck with a horrifying case of Borden after her family moved to a new house. With her parents too busy to entertain her, Coraline becomes enchanted by the promise of a doting father – mother and father on the other side of a curious, small door. As we might expect, the other – mother is not as perfect as she seems and Coraline must gather all her courage to save herself and her real parents.
“She became certain that there was something in the dark behind her: something very old and very slow” (130).
Coraline has been challenged for age – appropriateness, due to scary scenes that some have deemed too frightening for its young middle grade reader audience. Challenges due to age group for a large portion of book challenges. The movie version of Coraline intensified some of the scariness through images and music, and has increased the attention and challenges to the book.
By Emily M.
Children's Literature at UMN 