# Coraline



## Jesslyn (Oct 29, 2008)

Okay, is it me or is the Coraline movie trailer a little disturbing?  Are they marketing that to kids?  Anyone read the book?


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## Guest (Feb 6, 2009)

Jesslyn said:


> Okay, is it me or is the Coraline movie trailer a little disturbing? Are they marketing that to kids? Anyone read the book?


Yes, I've read the book. And it is dark and dsiturbing and a kiddie book. Think Roald Dahl but even more macabre.


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## Jesslyn (Oct 29, 2008)

Bacardi Jim said:


> Yes, I've read the book. And it is dark and dsiturbing and a kiddie book. Think Roald Dahl but even more macabre.


Yuck


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## chobitz (Nov 25, 2008)

Jesslyn said:


> Okay, is it me or is the Coraline movie trailer a little disturbing? Are they marketing that to kids? Anyone read the book?


Gaiman is my second favorite author. He writes kids, teens and adults books usually in the dark/urban/contemporary fiction.

I don't understand the coddling of children nowadays. Don't you remember what we grew up on? Wizard of Oz, anything by Dahl, the Grimm Fairy Tales, the matchstick girl, little prince, Alice in Wonderland etc are as dark as Gaiman's work.

It was only recent children's fiction that has become so cute and cuddly.

Gaiman always tries his kid fiction on children. He said in many articles that kids love the stuff but its only the adults who freak. Maybe we are too jaded by life experience??

Sample his work. He really is great.


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## Anniehow (Oct 28, 2008)

My 5 year old has been bugging me to see this movie since she saw the preview at Christmas. She LOVES The nightmare before Christmas so I'm sure I'll be taking her to see this when it comes out.


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## Mikuto (Oct 30, 2008)

Jesslyn said:


> Yuck


Could be worse. Kids could all be like me and reading Poe and Stephen King before they hit High School.


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## chobitz (Nov 25, 2008)

Anniehow said:


> My 5 year old has been bugging me to see this movie since she saw the preview at Christmas. She LOVES The nightmare before Christmas so I'm sure I'll be taking her to see this when it comes out.


Its alot like Corpse Bride or Nightmare Before Christmas. If she can handle those she should be OK. Mind you there are some things that might go over her head(thank god!) like Coraline talking to the spirits of dead children(its implied heavily that 'fake mom' killed them but never says it out and out).

Personally I was seriously traumatized as a kid by watching The Matchstick Girl one Christmas! What depressing holiday show!


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## Jesslyn (Oct 29, 2008)

I don't think kids need to be coddled per se. I'm not one of those Moms that think Old Yeller is bad. I was the Mom that got funny looks when I observed that all Disney movies were horror stories (this was back in the 80's).

I guess I don't like the occult aspect; I would rather that the darker elements (death, fear, etc.) be dealt with in a different manner.

BUT I do plan on sampling now.


Mikuto said:


> Could be worse. Kids could all be like me and reading Poe and Stephen King before they hit High School.


Could be much worse. I was reading Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Susann before HS. (My Mom would die if she knew that )


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## nebulinda (Dec 19, 2008)

I thought that the book was amazing. And the movie will have a hard time failing to meet my high expectations. I don't think kids would have a hard time digesting it. It's more creepy than scary, but it has a happy ending.

There's no way the movie won't be a heaping pile of awesome.


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## Mikuto (Oct 30, 2008)

Jesslyn said:


> I guess I don't like the occult aspect; I would rather that the darker elements (death, fear, etc.) be dealt with in a different manner.


Keep in mind that most, if not all fairy tales, have occult/dark elements in them, especially the original versions.

Look at Grimm's Fairy Tales, for example. The Wicked Witch in Snow White dies in the end by dancing to death wearing red hot slippers. And don't even get me started on the sexual and morality aspects of Little Red Riding Hood! Cinderella deals with familial abuse and self-mutilation (in the original version, the sisters hack off pieces of their feet to fit into the shoe) while Hansel and Gretel is about abandonment and cannibalism!

I've heard it said that the reason fairy tales deal with such dark matters is to sort of prepare children for the real world. But you can take or leave that explanation.

In the end, children don't always see how dark things are because they're not seeing it with an adult's eyes. As Chobitz said, Neil always has children read his stories meant for kids first, then adults, and the only people who ever find it dark or disturbing are the adults.


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## Guest (Feb 6, 2009)

Mikuto said:


> Keep in mind that most, if not all fairy tales, have occult/dark elements in them, especially the original versions.
> 
> Look at Grimm's Fairy Tales, for example. The Wicked Witch in Snow White dies in the end by dancing to death wearing red hot slippers. And don't even get me started on the sexual and morality aspects of Little Red Riding Hood! Cinderella deals with familial abuse and self-mutilation (in the original version, the sisters hack off pieces of their feet to fit into the shoe) while Hansel and Gretel is about abandonment and cannibalism!
> 
> ...


If I cared more about this thread, this is what I would have posted. Almost word for word.

Thanks, Mikuto.


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## mwvickers (Jan 26, 2009)

Mikuto said:


> I've heard it said that the reason fairy tales deal with such dark matters is to sort of prepare children for the real world. But you can take or leave that explanation.


Actually, fairy tales originally were meant for adults, not children. Once they were being directed toward children, the darker aspects of the stories were usually changed (think of Disney versions versus the Grimm brothers' versions). It's only been more recently (historically speaking) that fairy tales have been considered a genre for children.


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## Mikuto (Oct 30, 2008)

That depends on which ones you mean. The folkloric fairy tale was often for adults AS MUCH as children, but not strictly for adults. It's only recently (in the past hundred years or so) seen as being only for children. And they've been rewritten hundreds of times, even The Brothers Grimm changed things to make them more "acceptable" and they're thought of as the "original" sources for some of these stories. 

In the end though, children can handle dark themes. Even the most sanitized version of Hansel and Gretel still leaves the two abandoned in a forest by the parents, only to end up with a witch that wants to eat them, escaping only when they burn her alive.


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## mwvickers (Jan 26, 2009)

Mikuto said:


> In the end though, children can handle dark themes. Even the most sanitized version of Hansel and Gretel still leaves the two abandoned in a forest by the parents, only to end up with a witch that wants to eat them, escaping only when they burn her alive.


I wonder why Disney never made this one into a cartoon? LOL


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Perhaps fairy tales were told to children, in part, to protect them.  Think Hansel and Gretel:  The forest is dangerous.  But the average little kid only sees trees and flowers and butterflies, maybe. . .what's so dangerous about that.  So the story is told of the witch in the cottage to keep the kids from wandering away.

The whole stepmother-wants-to-kill-us is a different message, of course. . . .

Ann


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## Mikuto (Oct 30, 2008)

Oh definitely! Look at Little Red Riding Hood! The mother always tells Riding Hood "stay on the path." because she strays from the path, her grandmother gets eaten by a wolf, then she does! It's a tale of doing what your told or being good or the consequences can hurt you and the people you love!


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Mikuto said:


> In the end though, children can handle dark themes. Even the most sanitized version of Hansel and Gretel still leaves the two abandoned in a forest by the parents, only to end up with a witch that wants to eat them, escaping only when they burn her alive.


I forget which show I was watching a couple of weeks ago, but it was probably on The History Channel. I think it was about the mini-ice age. They related the Hansel and Gretel story to parents abandoning some of their children so there would be enough food for the rest to survive during that time of famine.


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## Panjo (Dec 21, 2008)

This was my first book on the Kindle (In fact, I've been looking for a name for my Kindle, Maybe I should go with Coraline, or Cora?) and I'm so excited for the movie. A friend of ours works for Leika, which did the animation for the movie. It looks amazing! You should check out the website. 

It's not a gory book- just creepy. It's suspenseful scary, not blood and guts gory.


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## Guest (Feb 6, 2009)

laika=Russian for "dog"

In traditional Soviet sensitivity, it was the name given to the first dog to go into space.


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## Kind (Jan 28, 2009)

Jesslyn said:


> Okay, is it me or is the Coraline movie trailer a little disturbing? Are they marketing that to kids? Anyone read the book?


I've seen the trailer but have not read the book yet.


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## chynared21 (Oct 28, 2008)

*My 8 y/o finished reading it in two days...said it was a great book with some scary parts. She tells me that I have to read it next *


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## J Dean (Feb 9, 2009)

If it's anything like his other works (NEVERWHERE), it'll be worth the read.  

There's a short story collection of his called SMOKE AND MIRRORS that's very nice.  It's not  strictly "horror" per se, but there are some good horror elements within the works.


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## frojazz (Feb 10, 2009)

I don't have kids, so I'm not the best judge of what they should or shouldn't watch, but I have read the book and seen the movie.  I really liked the Nightmare Before Christmas and The Corpse Bride.  Coraline is beautifully done in the same cinematic style.  The story is more creepy and suspenseful than scary.  The 'other mother' morphing into her true form reminded me of the witch changing into a dragon in Sleeping Beauty.

The movie plot deviated from the book, but it didn't change the overall message of the story.  (I should know by now that movies and the books they are based on are always different!)  But is was done in a way that I was asking myself, "When did that happen in the book?  I don't remember that part."  It seemed like just another really good way to tell the story.  I have to add that the friend that I saw the movie with was disappointed and thought that she won't be bringing her kids to it...maybe it is a movie that parents should screen first.


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2009)

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/coraline/


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## KindleMom (Dec 11, 2008)

We took the kiddos today to see Coraline (youngest is 6) and they all loved it!  It's very well done, creative and imaginative.  It's really not that scary - creepy is a good word.  

I Whipernetted the book walking out to the car after the movie.    I'll read it as soon as my 12 yr old goes to bed and I get my Kindle back.


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## Angela (Nov 2, 2008)

I think that will be my next book to read... I am in between books and have been having a hard time deciding!


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