Neil Gaiman reads The Graveyard Book online

I first heard about Neil Gaiman and his quirky books for kids from my GeekDad colleagues, so I can't believe it's been left to me to cue our readers in to the free online videos of Gaiman reading his newest work, The Graveyard Book, on his website www.mousecircus.com. The British author is currently traveling the U.S. reading a portion each day and posting it for fans to enjoy. The 9-city reading tour began October 1 and will last through Wednesday, by which time he'll have read, and you'll be able to watch, the entire book.

Adding insult to injury, this information came to me through the print media (ie, my daily newspaper). According to the AP's Jeff Baenen:

Gaiman's new novel, "The Graveyard Book," takes place in a cemetery, where an orphaned boy is raised by a vampire, a werewolf and a witch.
The seed for the idea was planted some 25 years ago, Gaiman says, when he was living in his native England and would take his young son
Michael to ride his tricycle in a nearby cemetery, since there was no real garden or yard at home.

Inspiration struck. Gaiman thought he could write a book similar to Rudyard Kipling's classic "The Jungle
Book," about a child adopted by wild animals. Instead, Gaiman would write about a child "who is adopted by dead people and taught all the things that dead people know."

The story also includes news about the stop-motion animated version of Coraline set to come out in February, directed by Henry Selick of The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach fame and starring the voices of Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher.

The kids say both look good. And it looks like I'll be getting a break from bedtime reading for a few days!