Coraline

Coraline is a 2002 children's novella by British author Neil Gaiman, blending fantasy and horror. Gaiman began writing it in 1990, and it was released in 2002 by Bloomsbury and HarperCollins. The book won 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 Guardian* placed it at number 82 on its list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. In 2009, it was turned into a stop-motion animated film directed by Henry Selick.

The story follows a girl named Coraline Jones, who moves with her parents into an old house divided into flats. The other residents include retired actresses April Spink and Miriam Forcible, and Mr. Bobo, known as the "Crazy Old Man Upstairs," who claims to train a mouse circus. The flat next to Coraline’s, behind a large brown door, is empty. One rainy day, Coraline finds that the locked door in the living room has been bricked up. Mr. Bobo passes along a warning from his mice not to go through it. Spink and Forcible read Coraline’s tea leaves and agree she is in danger, giving her a lucky adder stone for protection. Ignoring these warnings, Coraline unlocks the door when alone and finds the brick wall gone, replaced by a passage to an identical flat. There, she meets her Other Mother and Other Father—button-eyed, exaggerated copies of her real parents. In this Other World, everything seems better: her Other Parents are attentive, her toys are alive, and the neighbors perform a cabaret. The feral black cat from the real world can talk here, but he warns Coraline of danger, which she ignores.

The Other Mother offers Coraline a chance to stay forever if she lets buttons be sewn over her eyes. Horrified, Coraline returns home but finds her real parents missing, kidnapped by the Other Mother. She goes back to confront her. The cat advises Coraline to challenge the Other Mother, as her kind loves games. Coraline refuses to stay and is trapped behind a mirror. There, she meets three ghost children from different eras, who allowed the Other Mother—an evil being called the Beldam—to sew buttons over their eyes. They ask Coraline to find the essences of their souls so they can escape. The Beldam releases Coraline, and they agree to a game: Coraline must find the souls’ essences and her parents, hidden in the Other World.