{"id":2245,"date":"2020-09-09T15:00:50","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T21:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=2245"},"modified":"2020-06-26T21:59:22","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T03:59:22","slug":"book-the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/09\/book-the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheThe Ocean at the End of the Lane
\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2013
\nAuthor: Neil Gaiman
\nLength: 348 minutes \/ 5.80 hours<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nice to know that Neil Gaiman can write engaging, modern fairy tales that are longer than the short story format. The Ocean at the End of the Lane<\/em> was a delight to read, and I can see some parallels to other famous middle-grade fantasies (the Narnia<\/em> series came to mind here and was mentioned in the book). Everything about this story made sense, and the character and the world-building were top notch\u2014which I\u2019ve just come to expect from Gaiman\u2019s work. Truly, he continues to be the modern fairy tale maestro.<\/p>\n

One of the unique aspects of this story was how it seamlessly integrated the magical and the mundane. So often, these types of fairy tales transition to a world of magic and leave the boring, ordinary world behind. Not so in The Ocean at the End of the Lane<\/em>. If anything, using the supernatural to explain some of the challenges of our childhoods helps sell the storytelling here. Sure, there are moments in magical places, but the majority of the book has cleverly-hidden magic present in the real world. It\u2019s easy to have everything in a realm be magic; it\u2019s much more challenging to mix the two.<\/p>\n

I will warn those who would want to read this to their children that perhaps the children should be a little older, or you should be prepared to explain some of the content in it. Nothing is graphic, per se, it\u2019s just better to know how to answer any questions when adult situations are described through the lens of a young boy\u2019s experience. Of course, anyone who\u2019s read any amount of Gaiman would know that his fairy tales are more on the \u201cadult\u201d side of things. However, if you haven\u2019t dipped your toes into Gaiman\u2019s writing before, this is an excellent place to start.<\/p>\n

A wonderful fairy tale mixing of fantasy and reality, I give The Ocean at the End of the Lane<\/em> 4.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" 1\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ocean at the End of the Lane Year: 2013 Author: Neil Gaiman Length: 348 minutes \/ 5.80 hours It\u2019s nice to know that Neil Gaiman can write engaging, modern fairy tales that are longer than the short story format. The Ocean at the End of the Lane was a delight to read, and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,54],"tags":[121,1639,55,1441,1403,2480,523,8,2479],"class_list":["post-2245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-5-stars","category-book","tag-121","tag-adult","tag-book","tag-fairy-tale","tag-middle-grade","tag-narnia","tag-neil-gaiman","tag-review","tag-the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2245"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2250,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245\/revisions\/2250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}