In an homage to THE JUNGLE BOOK, Neil Gaiman has come out with another young adult’s/children’s book–only his version is set in a cemetery.   (Typical Gaiman twist. eh?…)

Both books deal with orphans, but whereas Kipling’s Mowgli was raised by the animals, THE GRAVEYARD BOOK’s Bod finds himself being mentored by ghosts.

Gaiman’s said he got the idea from watching his son zip around the graveyard across from their home:  “One day I looked at him, and he looked so comfortable there, and I thought: you know I could write a book kind of like The Jungle Book,” Gaiman said, “Because in The Jungle Book there’s a little boy who wanders into the jungle and is raised by animals and is taught all of the things that animals know.”

Dave McKean, whose artwork has been seen in Stephen King’s GUNSLINGER series and Gaiman’s CORALINE (soon to be a major motion picture), has teamed up once more with Gaiman to illustrate this book.

Even though the book is aimed at a younger audience, a recent preview reading of THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman at Cowin Center Auditorium at Columbia University proved that listeners of all ages were held enraptured by the story.

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK is coming out September 30th.