Coraline

Coraline was published in 2002 by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom and HarperCollins in the United States, and it is now usually described as a children's horror novella rather than a fantasy. Neil Gaiman had started writing it in 1990 while his daughter was small, and the version that was eventually released is short enough to read in an evening and unpleasant enough that some schools keep it off the shelf. It won the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novella in 2003 and the Bram Stoker Award for young readers the year before.

The book's method is to take a domestic complaint and follow it into a nightmare. Coraline's parents are not cruel, they are distracted and tired, which is exactly the opening the other flat needs, and the world behind the door gives her a version of each thing she has asked for. The button-eyed woman who runs it wants love on her terms, and the missing children she has already collected are the novel's reminder about what happens to children who accept the offer. Coraline's own solution is to treat the situation like a transaction and win it.

Gaiman's story has been adapted repeatedly. Henry Selick's stop-motion film arrived in 2009, the novella was turned into a musical and a graphic novel, and The Guardian placed it on its list of the best books of the century so far. It is the book most often recommended to a reader who is old enough for genuine dread and young enough to be scared by it.