The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman

A child abandoned in a graveyard after the vicious murder of his parents and sister, then raised by a vampire, a dead witch and the ghosts of the departed: you can see why Neil Gaiman thinks his children's books are scarier than the ones he writes for adults. His newest protagonist, Bod, or to give him his full name, Nobody Owens, is the friend of Nehemiah Trot, Poet, and Liza Hempstock, Witch, and the protégé of Silas, a "solitary type" of nocturnal habits and supernatural strength of body and mind. He receives the Freedom of the Graveyard; he learns to Fade, so that he can hide in plain sight; and he learns to shout for help in French, Morse code and night-gaunt. But how will such accomplishments benefit him among his human peers, or outside the graveyard, where the knife-wielding man Jack and the mysterious Convocation are still on his trail?

From title onwards, The Graveyard Book wears its homage to Kipling's Mowgli stories lightly, but it treats the triumphs and terrors of growing up with equal respect and has a similar delight in storytelling. It's carefully weighted between mystery and revelation, chase and contemplation, banality and outright lunacy: a breathless cross-country abduction by night, featuring a bunch of lolloping ghouls called things such as the Duke of Westminster and the Thirty-Third President of the United States, and the hauntingly evanescent moment in which the dead leave the graveyard to dance with the living townsfolk, are cases in point. And there are at least two moments of sufficient scariness to chill the blood of even the most resilient adult.

This brief, dark, savoury adventure deserves to become a modern classic of children's writing: it has more mystery, excitement and wisdom in a single chapter than all the soap-operatic dilemmas, empty acrobatics and moral dogmatism in those thousands of pages of Potter franchise. The illustrations by Dave McKean, for the adult edition (£14.99), and Chris Riddell, for the children's (£12.99), make the package even more enjoyable: there are no textual differences between the two formats, although one doesn't envy any artist who goes up against the genius McKean in the pen-and-brush game.

Gaiman's recent book tour in the US consisted of his reading a chapter from The Graveyard Book in each of the cities he visited, and his publishers put the whole lot up online as he did it. Visitors to Gaiman's website for young readers, www.mousecircus. com, will find a free video-audiobook of the author reading the entire novel available within a week of its publication. As try-before-you-buy, this is unbeatable, but – Moonies and Scientologists excepted – any author prepared to provide a free gift of such bewildering generosity deserves every encouragement. Which is just another reason to buy this hugely satisfying little book. '