SOURCE: Burkam, Anita L. Review of Coraline, by Neil Gaiman. Horn Book Magazine 78, no. 6 (November-December 2002): 755, 757.

In the following review, Burkam asserts that Coraline is an amusing story, but comments that it could be strengthened by more backstory and greater character development.

Out of sorts in her new home, Coraline finds a bricked-up door in the drawing room and, when her mother is out for the afternoon, discovers the bricks have gone and she can pass through to a very similar house with an “other mother” and an “other father.” These two creepy specimens (with paper-white skin and black button eyes) want her to stay and be their little girl. Back in her own home, Coraline waits in vain for her parents to return, until at last she catches sight of a mirror image of them and determines she must head back into the alternate house to try to...