Coraline

Coraline is a 2002 British dark fantasy horror children's novella by author Neil Gaiman. Gaiman started writing Coraline in 1990, and it was published in 2002 by Bloomsbury and HarperCollins. It was awarded the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novella, the 2003 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers. The Guardian ranked Coraline #82 in its list of 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. It was adapted as a 2009 stop-motion animated film, directed by Henry Selick under the same name.

Plot
Coraline Jones and her parents move into a large, old house that has been divided into flats. In these flats, Coraline meets her new neighbors; Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, two elderly women retired from the stage, and Mr. Bobo, initially referred to as "the crazy old man upstairs", who claims to be training a jumping mouse circus. The flat next to Coraline however, is empty, and connected by a mysterious door that Coraline finds to be blocked by bricks when she asks her mother to open it. One day, Coraline finds herself alone in the apartment, and out of curiosity, she opens the door. This time she finds a corridor, which she crawls through. On the other side, she notices she is in a space that looks almost exactly like her apartment. However, she finds the residents of this "other apartment" to be her mother and father, but they now have buttons for eyes. The copy of Coraline's mother introduces herself as Coraline's "Other Mother" and the man as Coraline's "Other Father".

Coraline immediately realizes that this "Other World" is far more interesting than her own. Here, her "parents" pay attention to her, her new button-eyed neighbors Miss Spink and Miss Forcible perform wonderful shows on stage every night in front of anthropomorphic dogs, and Mr. Bobo hosts a real amazing jumping mouse circus (however, those so-called "jumping mice" are actually black rats). She even finds a friend, a mysterious talking black cat that can travel between this world and the real world as he pleases. He is the only one without buttons for eyes.

One night, after Coraline returns to the copy of her flat, the Other Mother offers Coraline the opportunity to stay in the Other World permanently, but in order to do so, Coraline must allow buttons to be sewn over her eyes. Coraline is horrified and escapes through the door to her real home. Upon her return, Coraline finds that her real parents are missing. When they do not return the next day, the black cat wakes her and takes her to a mirror in her hallway, through which she can see her parents trapped inside. They signal to her by writing "Help Us" on the glass, from which Coraline deduces the Other Mother has kidnapped them. She first calls the police, but they do not believe her. Though frightened of returning, Coraline goes back to the Other World to confront the Other Mother and rescue her parents, reminding her of when her father saved her from wasps.

When Coraline finds the Other Mother, she is urged to stay but refuses. As a punishment, the Other Mother locks Coraline in a small space behind a mirror. In this small, dark space, she meets three ghost children. These children refer to the Other Mother as the "Beldam"; each had in the past let her sew buttons over their eyes to stay in this world. They tell Coraline how the Beldam eventually grew bored with them, casting them aside and leaving them to die. They are now trapped because the Beldam has kept their souls. The children tell Coraline that if their souls can be rescued, they will be free.

After the Beldam releases Coraline from behind the mirror, Coraline proposes a game. If she can find the essences of the ghost children's souls and her parents, then she, her parents, and the ghost children may all go free. If she fails, she will finally accept the Beldam's offer, let buttons be sewn into her eyes, and stay in the Other World forever. Coraline searches through the Other World and overcomes the Other Mother's obstacles by using her wits and Miss Spink's lucky adder stone to find the souls' essences. First, she finds the first soul in the toy box, next, she goes into the now abandon theater where she retrieves the second soul from the Other Spink and Forcible (who are now conjoined twins in a sac), then, she goes into a dim cellar where she battles a monstrous grub version of the Other Father (the Beldam might have did this to him as a form of punishment), and finally, she goes into the Other Mr. Bobo's flat, where the owner is revealed to be clothes filled with rats. She also concludes that her parents are imprisoned in a snow globe on the mantelpiece. The ghost children warn her that even if Coraline succeeds, the Beldam will not let her go, so Coraline tricks the Other Mother by announcing that she knows where her parents are hidden: in the passageway between the dimensions. The Beldam cannot resist gloating by opening the door to show Coraline that her parents are not there. When the Beldam opens the door, Coraline throws the cat at her, grabs the snow globe, and escapes to the real world with the key, and the cat quickly follows. While escaping, Coraline forces the door shut on the Beldam's hand, severing it. Back in her home, Coraline falls asleep on a chair. She is awoken by her parents who don't have any memory of what happened to them.

That night, Coraline has a dream in which she meets the three ghost children at a picnic. They warn her that her task is still not done: the Beldam will seek revenge and will try to get the key to unlock the door. So, one day, Coraline goes to an old well in the woods to dispose of the key. She pretends to have a picnic with her dolls, with the picnic blanket laid over the entrance to the well. The Beldam's severed hand attempts to seize the key, but steps on the blanket and falls into the well. That morning, Coraline returns to the house, greets her neighbors, and gets ready for school.

Characters

 * Coraline Jones is the main character. She is a curious, intelligent, resourceful, and courageous girl. Coraline is often irritated by rain, her "crazy" grown-up neighbors, and not being taken seriously because of her young age. She is described as being "small for her age".
 * Mel Jones is Coraline's mother. She is very busy most of the time, and sometimes inattentive, but she loves and cares about Coraline.
 * Charlie Jones is Coraline's father. He cares about Coraline very much and is kind, brave, and helpful. He makes "creative" food creations that Coraline strongly dislikes. He is usually found working at the house on his computer. He, like his wife, Mrs. Jones, is usually too busy to spend time with Coraline.
 * The Cat is a black cat from the real world, who acts as a mentor to Coraline and guides her through her journey. He is unnamed, as he explains that cats do not need names to tell each other apart, but the Other Mother refers to him as "Vermin". Unlike many of the characters in the novel, he does not have an "Other World" counterpart, as he states that unlike other creatures in the world, cats can "keep themselves together." He moves freely from one world to the other and is capable of talking in the Other World. He has a sarcastic personality, constantly belittling Coraline, but befriends and helps her escape from the Beldam. He is defiant of the Other Mother, but trembles at the thought of being stuck in the Other World forever.
 * The Beldam (also known as The Other Mother) is the main antagonist of the novel. She is an evil, inhuman sorceress and the ruler of the Other World. In her first form, she looks similar to Coraline's real mother but taller and thinner, with long black hair that seems to move by itself, black button eyes, paper-white skin, and extremely long, twitchy fingers with long dark red nails. During the course of the novel, she grows taller, thinner, and paler, having little physical similarities to Coraline's mother by the end, suggesting she has the ability to metamorphose. She cannot create, but only copy, twist, and change things from the real world when constructing her version of it. She collects children, whom she loves possessively to the point of their eventual destruction, taking their souls so they cannot leave her world and caring for them until they pass away, but wanting to feel their happiness and joy afterwards.
 * The Other Father is one of the creations of the Beldam, in the image of Mr. Jones, the Other Father is used to help trick Coraline to stay in the Other World. Like her real father, he has a study and sits there during the day and will not talk to Coraline for long. He does not work, he merely occupies the study, and is not permitted to talk to Coraline without the Beldam's influence. He appears to be much more enjoyable than Coraline's real father and always tries to be cheerful and fun in front of Coraline. In reality, the Other Father is sad and somewhat nervous. The Beldam ends up punishing him for revealing too much to Coraline—she transforms him into a soft, doughy, grub-like creature, and orders the Other Father to trap Coraline so she cannot win her challenge. He voices his reluctance not to harm her, yet cannot refuse the Beldam's orders.
 * April Spink and Miriam Forcible are a pair of retired actresses who live in the flat under Coraline's. They own many aging Scotties and talk in theater jargon, often referencing their glory days as actresses. In the Other World, they are youthful and perform continuously in front of anthropomorphic dogs. Later in the novel, the Other Spink and Forcible appear to be conjoined twins inside a cocoon-like sac where they have the second soul. As for the dogs, they appear to be bat/dog hybrids.
 * Mr. Bobo is a retired circus performer living in the flat above Coraline's and is commonly referred to throughout the story as the "Crazy Old Man Upstairs". Over the course of the book, he claims to be training mice to perform in a mouse circus, and often brings Coraline messages from them. His Other World counterpart trains rats and is made of rats.
 *  The Ghost Children are the spirits of three children, two girls and one boy, who were the previous victims of Beldam. The boy is described as having a dirty face and red trousers. One of the girls has blonde hair with a circle of glittering silver, a dress with a pattern of spider webs, and butterfly wings coming out of her back (implying that she might be a fairy). The other has a brown bonnet and brown dress. They were trapped by the Beldam at different times before Coraline and reside in the dark space behind the mirror. After having their souls restored, they go to the afterlife.

Graphic novel
A graphic novel adaptation by P. Craig Russell, lettered by Todd Klein and colored by Lovern Kindzierski, was published in 2008.

Film
With the help of the animation studio Laika, LLC, director Henry Selick released a stop motion film adaptation in 2009 that received much critical acclaim, and moderate box office success. At the 82nd Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Animated Feature but lost to Pixar's Up. Although the 2009 film has several differences (one example is the Beldam turning the Other Father into a pumpkin), it still manages to hold relatively strong to the original plot of the book. In the film, Coraline is depicted as having short blue hair and freckles. In the movie, there was an added new character named Wyborn "Wybie" Lovat, a boy about Coraline's age who frequently annoyed Coraline at first, but over time, they grow on each other. In the Other World, his copy cannot speak but is an ally to Coraline, and gets punished by the Other Mother when he helps Coraline escape the Other World. At the end of the film, Coraline reaches out to help Wybie tell his grandmother what is behind the little door. The sister of Wybie's grandmother was one of the ghost children lost to the Beldam.

2009 musical
A theatrical adaptation, with music and lyrics by Stephin Merritt and book by David Greenspan, premiered on 6 May 2009, produced by MCC Theater and True Love Productions Off-Broadway at The Lucille Lortel Theatre. Nine-year-old Coraline was played by an adult, Jayne Houdyshell, and the Other Mother was played by David Greenspan.

2018 opera
Another theatrical adaptation, a stage opera by Mark-Anthony Turnage based on the novella, made its world premiere at the Barbican Centre in London on 27 March 2018.

2025 musical
On 22 May 2024, it was announced that a new musical adaptation, with music and lyrics by Louis Barabbas and book by Zinnie Harris, would premiere at the Leeds Playhouse on 11 April 2025, before embarking on a tour to the HOME (Manchester), the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, and the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh.

Video games
A 2009 video game adaptation, based on the film, was published and developed by D3 Publisher of America. The game was released on 27 January 2009 for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS and Wii platforms and contains features such as playing as Coraline, interacting with other characters, and playing minigames. The game received mostly negative reviews, and little success.

Parodies
Coraline inspired the "Coralisa" segment of The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XXVIII", which aired on 22 October 2017. Neil Gaiman provided the voice of the Simpsons' cat, Snowball V.