The Graveyard Book

Fantasy (fiction), Trade Book, Lexile 820

Bod is just a baby when the rest of his family is killed by a strange, silent assassin. Somehow, he manages to crawl out of his crib and toddle down the road to the graveyard while the mayhem is happening. The ghosts of his family suddenly arrive and beg the inhabitants of the graveyard to raise Bod, and they agree. And this is how Bod comes to live in a graveyard, raised by ghosts and guarded by a man who is clearly not quite human. Bod's coming-of-age stories involve traditional escapades of exploration, family, and romance, but all with the macabre twists that one expects from a story about a boy growing up among the dead.