Neil Gaiman is a master story teller. He has woven his craft in many forms; graphic novels and comic books, short stories and full length novels and even children's books. Gaiman's first foray into kiddie lit came in the form of The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish. The similarities between this and his new children's novel, Coraline, are too many to not take notice. Bored children, distracted parents, surreal surroundings and extraordinary circumstances prevail in both stories. And they are both, in essence, morality tales - the moral being, be grateful for what you have, for what you get in exchange might not be any better. The grass is not always greener, kiddies.
Our heroine, Coraline - not Caroline! - has just moved into a new apartment house with her parents. She becomes bored and lonely almost immediately. She fancies herself an explorer and goes out to discover what else lies around the house, in the garden, in the apartments of the strange people that share the multi-family dwelling with her family. During her exploration, Coraline discovers a door that leads only to a brick wall. Coraline, being an explorer and an adventurer and a bored little girl (and hearing strange scurrying noises in the dark of night) thinks there is more to it. The next time she opens the door, the brick wall is gone. There is a dark hallway. And thus her adventure down the proverbial rabbit hole begins.
On the other side of that hallway is Coraline's "other" mother and father. They look like her parents, they almost act like her parents. It would seem they were her parents if not for the buttons that lay where their eyes should. And they seem to pay much more attention to her than her real parents do. Coraline lingers in this strange world, torn between liking the attention her other parents are giving her and fearing it. Soon the other parents start to look less like her own. The imposter mother becomes more frightening and threatening. Once Coraline escapes from the mother's clutches, she realizes her real parents are missing. It is now her job to save them from the monsters on the other side of the hallway.
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