If you are the type who likes creepy, bizarre, and mysterious tales with a bit of black magic thrown in, you will enjoy Coraline, by Neil Gaiman.
Coraline lives in a house with some very other strange inhabitants. On the floor above her and her parents, there is a crazy old man with a big mustache. He says he is training a mouse circus, but he won't let anyone see it. He says they are not yet ready and rehearsed.
Downstairs, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible live with a number of aging Highland terriers. They say they used to be famous actresses.
There are a few weeks left before school starts again, and Coraline is bored. So she sets out to explore their new house. She explores the garden and ponds and finds an old well. But when a rainy day keeps her inside, there is nothing else to do. Her father is working on the computer and has no time for her. Neither does her mother.
She goes into the drawing room, where there is a locked door that her mother says goes nowhere. Her mother gets the key, opens the door, and sure enough, there stands a brick wall. It was build to separate their side of the house from the empty side next door.
One day Coraline is again bored and opens that same door. This time it opens onto a corridor. She enters and discovers a mirror image of her own side of the house. But here her "other mother" has cooked delicious roasted chicken and potatoes. Her real mother hardly cooks at all. Here her father is happy to see her, whereas at home, he doesn't even look at her when he says hello.
In this "other house," her room is full of wonderful toys. At home she has almost nothing and is always bored. What could be better than this other house? But slowly Coraline realizes all is not well. Her other mother says she loves her and wants her to stay. When she captures Coraline's real parents, she knows she must free them.
This is an eerie, mysterious story that is full of things that go bump in the night, drams that scare you, ghosts, and other oddities. Children who like a bit of a scare will enjoy this.
In 2009, there is an American stop-motion 3D dark fantasy film based on Neil Gaiman's novel "Coraline".
