Neil Gaiman intended this book as a kind of gothic homage to The Jungle Book, a coming of age tale about a boy raised by the dead and by supernatural monsters. The final product is frightfully twee, and that is about the extent of the frightfulness. It's a a horror novel for people's who limits of the uncanny end at the door to Hot Topic.

The story begins promising enough, with a mysterious man by the name of Jack knifing a family in their sleep, minus a wandering toddler who escapes to the safety of a nearby graveyard. The friendly ghosts their decide to raise the human child as one of their own, and young Nobody "Bod" Owens learns history from people who lived it, as well as supernatural powers like Fading, Haunting, and Dream Walking. He befriends ghosts and narrowly escapes death at the hands of ghouls. Brief encounters with the world of the living, as Bod tries to buy a gravestone for the ghost of a witch, and attend school while dealing with bullies, showcase his strangeness.

The real hazards from the beginning come back at the end, as it turns out that the murderous Jack is a member of a paranormal fraternity, the Jack of All Trades, and a prophecy describes how young Bod will end their order if not killed. Bod, and a living friend, lure the Jacks into the graveyard and disable them in various ways, finally entrapping the murderous Jack with an ancient Celtic grave-guardian.

As usual, Gaiman has some lovely images; a brief trip to hell with the ghouls and the danse macabre between the living and the dead being standouts, but the book as a whole feels lifeless, sketched out, overly stylized rather than dealing with real characters, living or dead.