Coraline

Coraline
By Neil Gaiman

This is definitely a book about facing your fears, and real bravery.  "When you're scared but you still do it anyway," says Coraline, "that's brave."  In this wild, creepy fantasy, a little girl discovers a parallel world behind a door in her house.  On the other side, Coraline's "other parents" are scheming to keep her and destroy her real parents.  They have already stolen the souls of some other children, who appear as ghosts and explain some of this to Coraline.  The adventure Coraline embarks upon requires her to outsmart the other mother, which she does, along with the help of a friendly and coy black cat.  Along the way she encounters rats, monsters, cobwebs, magical toys, and bizarre neighbors.  But by far the spookiest thing about the story, for me, was that Coraline's other parents have giant black buttons instead of eyes--and they want to sew buttons onto Coraline, too.
I love Coraline's even-keel, go-getter attitude.  She doesn't skip a beat when she has to report her parents missing to an unconvinced police officer.  And though she is scared, she doesn't hesitate to walk right into danger in order to do what needs to be done.  She is really smart and brave, but also has her moments of breaking down and needing friends and advice from others.  Which she finds, luckily.
Perhaps it's a story of appreciating what you have, even when it's not perfect.  Coraline wishes her real parents would understand her better and have more time for her, but when she temporarily loses them, she realizes how much she loves them--and how much they love her.
(ISBN: 978-0-06-1139-37-6)