Salon recommends

Neil Gaiman's creepy new kids book and more of our favorite new titles.

Published June 3, 2002 6:59PM (EDT)

What we're reading, what we're liking

Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Harry Potter is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to "chapter" books (written for kids aged 8 and up) that adults like to read, too. In fact, adult novelists are now turning their hands to this sort of work -- there's Michael Chabon's forthcoming "Summerland" and the award-winning children's books of Paula Fox. Add to that this new dark fantasy novel by the author of last year's bestseller "American Gods." It's the story of a young girl who finds an old door in her family's rambling house, steps through it and winds up in an alternate version of her own home, presided over by a creepy figure called "the other mother." (She looks like Coraline's real mother, only with black buttons sewn on her face where her eyes ought to be.) The book is pristine and spooky, and the need to keep it so has helped filter out the genre wheeze that occasionally afflicts Gaiman's adult books.

-- Laura Miller

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By Salon Staff

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