Coraline. The book. On video. Free!

"When Coraline steps through a door to find another house 

strangely similar to her own (only better), things seem 

marvelous. But there’s another mother there, and another 

father, and they want her to stay and be their little girl. 

They want to change her and never let her go. 

Coraline will have to fight with all her wit and courage 

if she is to save herself and return to her ordinary life."

Good news for fans of Neil Gaiman's Coraline! To celebrate the 10th anniversary of his #1 New York Times bestseller, Neil Gaiman is posting readings of each chapter of Coraline on his official website for young readers, Mr. Bobo's Remarkable Mouse Circus.

Gaiman himself reads Chapter 1, Lemony Snicket reads Chapter 2, and Gaiman's "fairy goddaughter" Natashya Hawley reads Chapter 3. Chapters 4 through 11 are online now, read by such luminaries as John Hodgman, Melissa Mars, Holly Black, and R.L. Stine.

Gaiman was born in the U.K. and now lives near Minneapolis. He is a lifelong "devourer of books" who began his writing career as a journalist. I love this introduction of his biography on the website:

"Sometimes, when he was smaller, people used to tell Neil Gaiman not to make things up. He never listened. Now he’s written over twenty books, been given dozens of awards, many of them astonishingly ugly. He’s written television drama and for movies, and for comics. He’s even written “non-fiction” which he learned is only marginally less made-up than the fiction. Sometimes he thinks about finding some of those people who warned him of all the awful things that would happen if he kept making things up, and finding out if it’s happened yet, or is still going to happen, and whether he should buy a tin hat and thick boots for protection. In the meantime, he grows pumpkins and keeps on making things up."

Coraline was awarded the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novella, the 2003 Nebula Award for Best Novella, and the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers. The 10th Anniversary Edition of the book features a new foreword from the author, a reader's guide, and an author Q&A.

In 2009, the book was adapted by Henry Selick into an animated film of the same name, which is now available on DVD.