The Graveyard Book
Not everyone grows up the same
REVENGE
Nobody Owens is a lad confined to the Graveyard for his own safety - His family's killer is still out there searching for him.
However Bod is not frightened, instead he prepares.
"Well," said Bod. "If I go outside in the world, the question isn't 'who will keep me safe from him [the man Jack]?'"
"No?" [Silas responds]
"No. It's 'who will keep him safe from me?'" -page 181.
Silas, his guardian, is not shocked, nor surprised, nor discouraging of this attitude. Instead Silas signs Bod up for school in order to prepare him, give him the ability to achieve his goals, learn, and make mistakes along the way.
*Spoiler: He gets his revenge, only he is very tricky about it.
EDUCATION
Learning comes in a myriad of forms and in The Graveyard Book a myriad is what you find.
"I have teachers. Letitia Borrows teaches me writing and words, and Mr. Pennyworth teaches me his Compleat Educational System for Younger Gentlemen with Additional Material for those Post Mortem. I do geography and everything." (page 70).
However he is still ignorant (which Ms. Lupescu takes care of). He must learn the ways of the Graveyard - Shifting, Fading, Haunting - which can only be taught by ghosts through practice.
However he knows that he is different - He is alive, and knows that one day he will have to leave. Therefore,
"It's [the world] filled with things I don't know. And the teachers here have taught me lots of things, but I need more. If I'm going to survive out there"
- page 180
School - where most kids spend, on average, 7 hours a day - is supposed to be the place in which facts and figures are learned. At school Bod, constantly called Bob, is the student in the back of the classroom. His teachers often forget him, same with the students. However his unique upbringing surrounded by the dead give him intimate knowledge of a history not in the textbooks.
Good and Evil
Werewolves and Vampires (at least the ones we meet) are the good guys.
The dead are not there to frighten.
Bod encounters more fearful characters among the living than the dead.
Literary
The title of this novel as well as the main character and his unconventional home are inspired by Kipling’s The Jungle Book and Mogli.
Robinson Crusoe the tale of a castaway, survivor has certain parallels.
Homer’s The Odyssey has a scene in which Odysseus calls himself Nobody in order to thwart the Cyclops and escape death. The Graveyard Book is also an episodic journey of discovery – both of self as well as of deeds.
COMMUNITY
"It is going to take more than just a couple of good-hearted souls to raise this child. It will," said Silas, "take a graveyard." (page 22)
This is a play off that old saying, "It takes a village to raise a child"
Children will take away all sorts of lessons from all manner of people within a community. Communities are meant to surround families and individuals with careing, love, cooperation, and acceptance. The Graveyard inhabitance - despite their initial reluctance - has these qualities in spades.
SUPERNATURAL
Lady in Grey - aka Death
Mummies
The Sleer
Ghouls
Werewolves
Vampires
Ghosts
Men who have been currupted by power
- weapons with bloodlust
-enhanced senses (hearing, smell, etc..)
Witches (deceased)
YOUTH
The author started writing this book for his daughter, and he wrote the cemetary as a metaphor for childhood. We journey with the protagonist throughout his childhood which can be seen as magical, but also sad and isolated.
FATE VS. FREEWILL
The Jacks-of-All-Trades believe that Bod is the child of prophecy "foresaw that one day, there would be a child born who would walk the borderland between the living and the dead. That if this child grew to adulthood it would mean the end of our order and all we stand for... To do it properly, so we could take all the bad Juju and make it work for us instead, and keep everything tickety-boo for another five thousand years." (p.271)
DEATH
The Afterlife is different than the conventional heaven or hell concept. Death is the Lady on the Grey, whom everyone in meets when the time comes. For Mr and Mrs Owens marriage did not end with their deaths. In fact one chapter has two ghost from different eras courting one another.