Annal:2002 Bram Stoker Award for Work for Young Readers

Coraline

Neil Gaiman

• 2002 Stoker–Youth winner
• 2003 Mythopoeic-Children finalist
• 2005 YRCA-Junior nominee
• Score: 20.52

The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring….

In Coraline’s family’s new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close. The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.

Only it’s different.

At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there’s another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.

Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself.

Abarat: Part 1. Abarat

Clive Barker

• 2002 Stoker–Youth nominee
• Score: 6.52

It begins in the most boring place in the world: Chickentown, U.S.A. Candy Quackenbush lives in Chickentown, her heart bursting for some clue as to what her future might hold.

When the answer comes, it’s not one she expects. Out of nowhere comes a wave, and Candy, led by a man called John Mischief (whose brothers live on the horns on his head), leaps into the surging waters and is carried away.

Where? To the ABARAT: a vast archipelago where every island is a different hour of the day, from the Great Head that sits in the mysterious twilight waters of Eight in the Evening, to the sunlit wonders of Three in the Afternoon, where dragons roam, to the dark terrors of Gorgossium, the island of Midnight, ruled over by the Prince of Midnight himself, Christopher Carrion.

As Candy journeys from one amazing place to another, making fast friends and encountering treacherous foes—mechanical bugs and giant moths, miraculous cats and men made of mud, a murderous wizard and his terrified slave-she begins to realize something. She has been here before.

Candy has a place in this extraordinary…

Cat in Glass and Other Tales of the Unnatural

Nancy Etchemendy

• 2002 Stoker–Youth nominee
• Score: 6.52

From the first two-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award in the children’s category come this gripping collection of eight tales of the weird and otherworldly. In the title story, madness awaits inside a statue created by an insane dying artist. “The Lily and the Weaver’s Heart” is a tale of a courageous one-eyed village girl who makes a life for herself and her young love, a one-legged cobbler, by selling her weavings and taking his place in a time-honored courting ritual in which young village men set out on a weeklong hunt for a rare lily for their future spouses. In “Lunch at Etienne’s,” a brief, chilling tale of nuclear winter, a woman continues her weekly luncheon dates until she realizes she’s the only diner speaking. In “The Flat-Brimmed Hat,” a teenage girl’s attempted suicide is thwarted by a visit from her older, wiser, happier self.

Abu and the 7 Marvels

Richard Matheson, William Stout

• 2002 Stoker–Youth nominee
• Score: 6.52

From the land of genies and their magical feats comes this enchanting twist on the traditional quest tale. Abu, a young peasant, sets off with the most ancient genie in his country’s domain in search of the seven marvels of the world in order to prove himself worthy of the hand of a beautiful princess. With cunningly crafted prose, gorgeous illustrations, and unique characters, this novel reveals itself to be no ordinary genie tale. From an unraveling flying carpet and ever-encroaching henchmen to a land made of sweets and a city under the sea, this tale takes readers on a daring journey of true love, bravery, glittering treasure, and intrigue.