Graveyard Book Questions

remister

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It's been years since I read this book so I've forgotten, but now that I'm thinking about it I got some questions:
1. Did the MC's parents' ghosts stay in the graveyard? If yes, how come MC is adopted by some other ghost and given a new name? If no, why not???
2. Did we ever find out who the Jacks were? I know they're bad guys but what do they actually do???
 

playground

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i read it like, four months ago or so? Going off of memory here:

1. They did not, they moved on. I can't remember why, but they asked the graveyard to take care of him I could have sworn.

2. Kind of. They were an organization that went WAY back that were like immortal I believe? They were trying to kill the kid as the prophecy said one would be the end of their organization.
 

remister

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i read it like, four months ago or so? Going off of memory here:

1. They did not, they moved on. I can't remember why, but they asked the graveyard to take care of him I could have sworn.

2. Kind of. They were an organization that went WAY back that were like immortal I believe? They were trying to kill the kid as the prophecy said one would be the end of their organization.

1. Why did they move on? ARGH! I wanna know the logic for parents leaving their baby when they could have stayed, even if as ghosts.
2. I remember the prophecy but what do they do actually? Like are they soul eaters? Vampires?
 

neandermagnon

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At the start, his parents' ghosts were described as being newly dead and kind of fuzzy, and it implied they were traumatised and not ready to be ghosts and that it took time to get used to being dead and that people who died violent deaths found it harder to adjust, and because of this they were not able to look after their child but wanted reassurance that he would be looked after. The ghosts in the graveyard were all long dead and much more stable. It was not a foregone conclusion that they would look after him and it was not normal for ghosts to look after living children. The difference in this case was that the couple who adopted him had longed for a child in life but never got one and died childless. They had to state their case to all the other ghosts to be allowed to keep the child at all.

If you're writing something that's inspired by this book you need to read it again (and again, and other books as well). Don't rely on other people reminding you what happened. If you're looking to just discuss the book (like in a book club type of discussion) there's a separate forum/section for that and you'll likely get better discussion there.

The exact nature of the Jacks was kept mysterious IIRC. They weren't any particular type of being, other than they all appeared to be humans (or mostly human) and part of some type of secret organisation. IMO I often prefer it when writers keep things a bit mysterious rather than explaining everything. And mysterious creatures in a book don't have to fit into any given pre-existing kind of supernatural creatures. I really liked the concept of the Jacks. It was new and very different but also tied in with traditional stories and rhymes where characters named Jack are very common.

ETA: I've tried to find where the AW bookclub forum is but I can't find it :e2smack:
 
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remister

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Ooooh, thanks! That makes sense.

No I'm not writing anything inspired by the book. I just happened to think about it. I didn't even know there's a book club on here?