Half World

Melanie Tamaki is human—but her parents aren't. They are from Half World, a Limbo between our world and the afterlife, and her father is still there. When her mother disappears, Melanie must follow her to Half World—and neither of them may return alive. Imagine Coraline as filmed by the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki ( Howl's Moving Castle ), or Neil Gaiman collaborating with Charles de Lint. Half World is vivid, visceral, unforgettable, a combination of prose and images that will haunt you. "Melanie Tamaki is an outsider. She is unpopular at school. At home, where she and her loving but neglectful mother live in poverty, she has had to learn to take care of herself. Melanie is just barely coping. Everything changes on the day she returns home to find her mother is missing, lured back to Half World by a nightmare creature calling himself Mr. Glueskin. Soon Melanie has embarked on an epic and darkly fantastical journey to Half World to save her mother. What she does not yet realize is that the state of the universe is at stake ..."--Page 4 of cover "Melanie Tamaki is an outsider. She is unpopular at school. At home, where she and her loving but neglectful mother live in poverty, she has had to learn to take care of herself. Melanie is just barely coping. Everything changes on the day she returns home to find her mother is missing, lured back to Half World by a nightmare creature calling himself Mr. Glueskin. Soon Melanie has embarked on an epic and darkly fantastical journey to Half World to save her mother. What she does not yet realize is that the state of the universe is at stake ..."-- Dust jacket