So Last Night When I Got to See Neil Gaiman...

... It was really awesome. During this book signing tour, Neil skipped the usual waiting in line to get an autograph. Instead, we got to watch some clips from the upcoming movie version of Coraline, listen to Neil read a chapter from The Graveyard Book, and listen to some Q & A. Last night was his last stop on the tour, in my hometown of St. Paul, MN.

The new Coraline movie looks absolutely awesome, by the way. It is a stop-motion film, and in one of the clips we watched, they show the literal set and miniature actors. Watching the clips, I quickly came to the conclusion that Coraline is the type of book that might possibly be just as good or even better on screen. While reading the book, you know the whole time about the Other Mother having button eyes, but its so much creepier to see it.

If you have not heard what The Graveyard Book is about, Neil explained last night that when his son was young, the house was too small for his son to ride his tricycle inside, so Neil would take him across the street to a graveyard. The sight of his son peddling among the gravestones mixed in his imagination with the story of The Jungle Book, where an orphaned child is raised by animals. In The Graveyard Book, a young boy is raised by ghosts and named Nobody Owens, or Bod for short. As in The Jungle Book, each chapter is a sort of short story that can stand alone, but still relates to all of the other chapters.

I haven't read the book, as I just got my (autographed!) copy last night, but my husband, whom I graciously allowed to start reading the book, says what he has read so far is really good. Which of course it would be, being Neil Gaiman and all.

You can actually listen to all of the chapters of the book now online, which is also awesome.

For my husband and I, though, the highlight of the evening was the Q & A. Neil is not only a clever writer but a witty speaker. Most of the questions he must have answered time after time after time, but he had the audience cracking up to his answers to such questions as "Which of your characters would you invite to dinner to meet your family?" (His answer: "I would be terrified... they'd come over and we'd be eating and then they'd ask me, 'Hey, what was that broken arm on page 73 all about?' I'd say, 'Well, it made for a good story', and they'd be like, 'Well, it hurt!' ").

One of the audience members wrote on his question card: "Why Minnesota?" As you may or may not know, Neil moved from Great Britain to Minnesota. Neil explained that really there were two different questions based on where you put the emphasis. "If the question is why did I move to Minnesota, the answer is that I had no idea what the cold was going to be like when I got here. But I like the idea that it is actually an existential question... Why Minnesota?"

As a final note, I have to add that the event took place in an old church. At first, we thought it was a bit odd, but the lights were turned off a few times for dramatic effect and the half-light through the stained-glass windows really set the scene for a reading from a book set in a graveyard.

And check this out for Neil's take on the event last night.