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1-Page Summary of The Graveyard Book

Overall Summary

In a small village in England, Jack is on the hunt for a young boy. He’s already killed his parents and sister, so he goes to find their son. The baby climbs out of his crib and toddles up the hill toward the graveyard gates. Once inside, ghosts surround him and debate whether or not they should protect him from Jack. They decide that since he’s still alive, they can’t get involved with him yet; however, when Bod’s mother appears as a ghost she asks them to keep her child safe because Jack will kill him if given the chance. The ghosts agree to watch over Bod until it’s time for him to die naturally so that he’ll be able to live among them forever in peace after death.

When Bod is four, he meets Scarlett and they play in the graveyard together. They eventually learn about an underground barrow grave that guards some treasures for its master. The children explore it, but don’t find anything scary or interesting there. Later on, Scarlett moves away.

Silas leaves Bod in the care of Miss Lupescu, who will be his guardian for a month. Bod dislikes her because she is cruel and treats him like he’s stupid. He sits on a grave at night to think about his situation when three ghouls find him and take him to Ghûlheim (a city in hell). The ghouls toss Bod through a gate that leads to hell; however, he is able to call out with the language of night-gaunts—giant birds that live there—and they save him from being taken by the ghouls. Later on, Miss Lupescu finds out what happened and takes care of Bod every summer until he grows up.

Bod is ten years old when he hears about a witch that was supposedly buried in the graveyard. His adoptive parents won’t tell him anything, but other ghosts say she’s a bad person and isn’t really buried there. However, when Bod meets Liza Hempstock, he discovers that she’s actually a teenager who was disrespectful to be buried without proper respect. Outraged by this treatment of her remains, Bod decides to sell one of his treasures and use the money to buy Liza a headstone for her grave.

A selfish and greedy man named Abanazer Bolger, who is also a dealer of sorts, immediately realizes that the brooch is special. He locks Bod in his office and calls another person to discuss the matter further. During this time, Liza finds out about what’s going on and helps Bod escape by getting him out of the room. She appreciates the paperweight headstone he makes for her because she isn’t one of those ghosts that are confined to their graves like other people are.

That winter, strange things happened. Bod’s ghost friends started reciting rhymes about a “Macabray” and white flowers bloomed in the graveyard. Later, when Bod couldn’t find anyone in the graveyard, he followed the sound of music to town square where he watched ghosts leave their graves and dance with living people. He danced with Liza and Lady on Grey as well. The next day nobody would talk to him about what happened because they were all too busy talking about something else that had nothing to do with him or his dance partners.

Bod is a character in a book who has lived for hundreds of years. He goes to school, and meets some bullies there. They bully other kids, but Bod intervenes and tries to stop them from bullying others. Eventually, Silas (Bod’s guardian) decides that it’s too risky for Bod to continue going to school because the bullies could hurt him physically or emotionally.

Scarlett is 15 years old when her parents divorce. She and her mother move back to the village where she grew up. They take a bus, but Scarlett accidentally gets off at the wrong stop and ends up in the graveyard where she played as a child. There, she meets Mr. Frost, who drives her home and becomes good friends with Scarlett’s mother. Soon after their first meeting, Bod visits Scarlett in a dream and they talk about his family’s murder. With help from Mr. Frost, Scarlett learns that authorities never solved the case—and that Mr. Frost lives in the house where Bod’s family once lived! So he must have been involved somehow! When he offers for Bod to come over so they can discuss it further, Bod is unsure if he should leave his graveyard because Silas has left him alone there without any instruction on what to do next since Silas was killed by Jack (Mr. Frost). Finally deciding to go visit him at his house with Scarlett because of all this new information about his past life being revealed by people who are actually connected to it now instead of just dreams like before which could be anything or anyone’s imagination including Bods own; He goes hoping for answers or guidance from someone besides himself about how he got here… But then when they arrive things seem very odd…