Coraline is a horror novella by British author Neil Gaiman, published in 2002 by Bloomsbury and Harper Collins. It was awarded the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novella, the 2003 Nebula Award for Best Novella, and the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers. It has been compared to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland because of its surrealism and plot based in an alternate-reality.

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Coraline movie poster

Having recently moved into a new apartment with her loving but distracted and preoccupied parents, Coraline finds herself bored one rainy day and, upon her father’s suggestion, decides to explore the flat. She finds a locked door in the drawing room, which her mother opens and explains once led to the flat next door but was bricked up when the building (which was once a single house) was separated into apartments. That night, Coraline hears a strange noise and the door, which was previously closed by her mother, is slightly open.

The next day she takes the key to the door and opens it to find, instead of a brick wall, a dark corridor which leads to another apartment, seemingly a copy of her own. This alternate world is inhabited by her Other Mother and Other Father, who are almost exact physical duplicates of her real parents. The only difference: a pair of black buttons sewn in place of their eyes. These Other parents seem at first to be more interesting, and more caring duplicates of her real parents, particularly her Other Mother, who seems intent on keeping Coraline happy. Coraline spends a pleasant day exploring this alternate world, making the acquaintance of a rather self-centered black cat that can actually speak, and visiting her neighbors, all of whom have been changed into more eerie versions of themselves. At the day’s end, Coraline is met on her way to the door by her Other Mother, who offers her a chance to stay in this world forever if only Coraline is willing to do one thing: sew buttons on her eyes. Coraline decides she’d rather go home, much to the disappointment of her Other Mother.

Upon her return to her flat, Coraline waits in vain for her real parents to return, but after a day passes without any sign, she suddenly sees them reflected in a hallway mirror, upon which her mother quickly breathes and writes “Help Us” backwards before vanishing. Coraline knows instantly her parents have been kidnapped by her Other Mother, and resolves to rescue them. With a special stone given to her by her neighbors, travels once more to the Other Mother’s world. After angering her Other Mother by refusing to accept any gifts or love, she is taken to a mirror in the hall and pushed through into a tiny room. While in the room, Coraline meets the souls of three other children from different times whom the Other Mother has tired of. Coraline promises to free them, and is told to look through the stone that she brought, which has a small hole in its middle.

The next day, Coraline is freed from her prison behind the mirror. She makes a deal with her Other Mother: If she can find the children’s souls and her parents, then they can all go home, but if she doesn’t she will have to stay forever. The Other Mother agrees and swears on her right hand. With the help of the cat, Coraline uses the stone to find the children’s souls. She discovers that the souls are trapped inside grey marbles that glow in bright colors when seen through the stone. Coraline and the cat, whom Coraline has promised to rescue as well, confront her Other Mother and Coraline pretends to guess falsely that her real parents are trapped in the corridor between the two flats. When the Other Mother opens the locked door to prove that she’s wrong, Coraline throws the cat in the other mother’s face. Coraline and the black cat escape with the souls, the key to the door, and her parents. Coraline reaches her flat, and finds that her parents have been restored to their usual, boring selves.

The next night, Coraline discovers that her task is not yet done. The Other Mother sends her right hand to retrieve the black key that opens the door, which Coraline carries on a string. The hand was left in Coraline’s world during her escape, as it was severed when Coraline forced the door closed on the Other Mother. The hand tries several times to steal the key from her, but Coraline uses the key to lure the hand to a mile-and-a-half deep well on the property and tricks it into falling in, ridding the world of the danger of the Other Mother forever.