Coraline by Neil Gaiman

A nice fairy tale, very pretty, simply written and a bit macabre. I've watched the movie before knowing this book existed, so I knew the story; book and movie are very much alike, with little differences. There are Miss Spink and Miss Forcible living with their dogs, there is the 'crazy' old man living in the upstairs apartment with his rats that know more than him (they know she's called Coraline and not Caroline, and also know that she should Not open that door...); as in the movie little Coraline gets bored all alone in the new house and her parents have no time to play with her. In the book there was no strange kid living nearby, though. She likes to go exploring, but when outside it rains so much she's forced to stay inside, she's left with only the house to explore. There is a door that leads nowhere: her mother shows it to her. She opened it with a key only to reveal a brick wall. One day she's alone in the house, she's bored, so she takes the old black key and opens the strange door again, to find.. no more the brick wall, but a corridor. She follows it and comes out in what at first seems just like her home, only it is her other-home, and she meets her other-mother and her other-father, who are nice, want to play with her and cook for her delicious meals. They look just like her parents, only they have big black buttons instead of eyes. In other-Miss Spink and other-Miss Forcible's house there is now a theatre all the time, with the dogs as audience, and the rats of the other-strange man play with her, the cat talks with her (he's not the other-cat, he's the same cat, he can go back and forth), everything is colorful and interesting, yet Coraline doesn't like when her other-mother strokes her hair, and is not at all sure she'd like to stay here, so when they propose that she'd sew buttons on her eyes to be able to stay there forever, she doesn't have the slightest hesitation and refuses immediately. Back home she finds her real parents are gone, disappeared. She asks the cat and he takes her in front of a mirror, where she sees them on the other side, trapped. She goes again to her other-mother to demand their release; her other-mother tells her that her parents have left her because they wanted to be free without her but Coraline doesn't believe it (not really): you're lying, you stole them, she says to her.
Her other-mother has created that house and little else outside copying her real home, so the only way to get away from her is the strange door, but now she locks it and keeps the key. She eats cockroaches and gets angry when Coraline doesn't accept her "you're not my mother", and locks her up, opening the mirror with a key and leaving her there inside the wardrobe in the dark. Coraline hears the voice of three ghosts, sad children whose parents were stolen like Coraline's, then the other-mother left them there, she stole their heart, their soul, their life, and forgot them there. They ask her to find their souls so to free them. When the other-mother comes, Coraline proposes a game, as the cat suggested: she must find her parents and the three souls, if she succeeds she'll be free with them, if she fails she'll  stay and let her sew buttons on her eyes. She looks everywhere, using the little stone with a hole inside that Miss Spink had given her against bad things, and looks through it: everything is grey except the souls, she finds one among the toys, one in the theatre (in the hand of a horrible creature that had been the other-Miss Spink and other-Miss Forcile together) and one in the "hands" of one of the rats, and here the cat helps her with it :-) They all try to convince her to stay, saying she'll have everything she desires, but she sighs and says you don't understand, I don't want everything I desire, nobody really wants it, what fun could it be if I could have everything no problem? It'd had no value, and then what?
Now, she knows the other-mother won't honor her promise,  so she tricks her. "they are behind the door, I'm sure of it" and the other-mother opens it to show her her mistake. Coraline throws the cat in her face, grabs the snowball with her parents and runs for the door. The cat follows her and they escape, but one hand of the other-mother follows her too. Now her parents are back, but she's still in danger because the hand keeps looking for the key, scaring Mr Bobo's rats and hurting the Misses' dog. She prepares a trap, she pretends to be playing with dolls and puts a paper towel over a deep well, so when the hand jumps to take it both fall down, hand and key. She hastily covers it well and leaves it there! She gives back the little stone she doesn't need anymore, and hugs them both. Now she can sleep well, without fear: the next day she'll have to start school, but this time she's not afraid, she knows nothing in there can scare her anymore :-)