J. Gracy Nirmala & Dr. D. Deepa Caroline (Associate Professor)
Karpagam Academy of Higher, Education, Coimbatore – 641 021
Abstract
One of the most important and coveted children’s writers is Neil Gaiman. His works for children are
widely read, and his novels that are particularly written for children are fantasy based. Children naturally gravitate
towards fantastic elements, and Neil Gaiman not only writes wonderful works of fantasy, but he also understands the
type of fantasy that children love. The novel under consideration for this paper is The Graveyard Book. This is a book
that has dark fantastical elements, and this paper proposes to examine these dark fantasy elements in the select novel.
The paper identifies certain fantastical elements in the novel and supports with some incidents. Most of the fantasy
novels that has young protagonists after the narrative journey, come to the real-world innocent and unaffected. But in
the case of Graveyard Book, Bod has no other choice than to grow and explore. He must get ready to face the real
world and the consequences. This dark fantasy stays true to what a dark fantasy ought to establish.