Conversation: Author Neil Gaiman

“There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.”

That is the very scary first line of the book that’s just won the Newbery Medal, the highest honor for children’s literature.

Author Neil Gaiman is a man of many genres: science fiction, graphic novels — some of you will know his ‘Sandman’ series — screenplays, adult fiction, as well as books for young readers.

His Newbery winner, ‘The Graveyard Book,’ is the story of an orphaned toddler — that ‘knife’ in the first line dispatches the rest of his family early on — who is then raised by a community of ghosts in a graveyard.

Neil Gaiman grew up in England and now lives in Minnesota. One of his novels for young readers, ‘Coraline’ is just being released as an animated film. He joined us from Los Angeles, where he is promoting that film:

You can watch Neil Gaiman read “The Graveyard Book” in its entirety on his Web site.