valuable lessons and imparting valuable advice that will stand him in good stead for the rest of his life.

In the development of this theme, we can see another example of Gaiman's originality. Normally, one would expect to see ghosts and spirits in a graveyard treated as if they were scary, frightening monsters. No adult would want to hang around them, let alone a young child. And yet here, they're presented to us in an altogether more sympathetic light, as members of a thriving community with its own rules, standards, and codes of behavior.

Not only that, but the denizens of the graveyard are also welcoming to Bod in a way that one wouldn't expect. They generously allow him to enter their world and be part of their community, even though it's likely to be an awfully long time before he can truly become one of them. This welcoming attitude towards strangers is arguably the most important of the many lessons learned by Bod in the graveyard.

Written by English author Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book is a young adult novel that tells the story of Nobody ‘Bod’ Owens who is raised in a graveyard by ghosts. As such, the ideas of death and the supernatural are important themes within the novel.

Following the murder of his parents and his eight-year-old sister in their sleep, eighteen-month-old Nobody ‘Bod’ Owens escapes from the house and enters a graveyard close to his home. He is adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Owens—at the request of his dead mother. Mr. and Mrs. Owens were buried in the graveyard more than a hundred years ago, and, when they were alive, they did not have any children of their own. Bod is given the Freedom of the Cemetery, which means that he can now see and communicate with both the living and the dead.

As Bod gets older, he begins to realize that he isn’t like Mr. and Mrs. Owens and the other ghosts he lives with. He becomes aware that he is one of the living, living with the dead in the world of the supernatural. Although The Graveyard Book is a story that concerns death, the afterlife, and the supernatural, it isn’t frightening at all.

The Graveyard Book is an interesting story that reflects on themes of family and fate. There are quite a few other interesting themes this novel addresses, but the most crucial theme of the story seems to be the role the community plays in raising a child. This ties in with the theme of fate versus free will.

Let me explain:

The story starts out with a horrible murder. Ronald Dorian (an architect), his wife (Carlotta), and their 7-year-old daughter (Misty) are fatally stabbed to death by the mysterious and evil Jack Frost. Jack belongs to an organization called The Jacks of All Trades. The reason Frost has been tasked with murdering the whole family is because someone in the fraternal order prophesied centuries ago that the day would come when a special child who could walk the borderlands between the living and the dead would destroy the whole order.

Alas for Frost! He bungles the job and doesn't kill the child after all. Nobody Owens (as he comes to be called by his new graveyard family), survives. He is nicknamed Bod for short. The dead inhabitants of the graveyard speak their mind on whether they will take Bod on as their own after his mother's ghost pleads for Mrs. Owen (who becomes Bod's adopted mother) to protect her son from Jack Frost. So, you can see that the graveyard community (or all the interested parties) come together to carve out a consensus. Mr. and Mrs. Owen become Bod's new parents. Silas becomes his special guardian. Miss Lupescu, a Hound of God, is another special guardian and teacher.  Bod inherits teachers, playmates, aunts, uncles, confidants, brothers, and sisters from this community of the dead.

Bod learns special skills from many of them. Besides all the subjects you typically learn in school, Bod also learns how to Fade (to become visible and invisible as the situation requires), to DreamWalk (where he is able to enter the dreams of another person), and how to cry for help in different languages (this last one is taught to him by Miss Lupescu). Bod is given the Freedom of the Graveyard; this is the ability to come and go as he pleases to any area of the graveyard, be it tombs, private mausoleums, or secret crypts.

So, how does this tie in with the theme of free choice and fate?

It is Bod's community of care-givers and mentors who prepare him for the final battle to defeat the order of The Jacks of All Trades. They do everything possible to provide him the necessary tools to thrive and to succeed; Bod's part is to decide whether he will eventually face the evil he has been prophesied to defeat.

Hope this helps!

Crafting a thesis statement about a novel’s themes is a multi-step process. The first step is to determine the primary and secondary themes. The next step is to figure out the degree to which those themes relate to each other by looking at the ways the author has developed each theme. The author’s success can be based in effective characterization, plotting, mood, and other techniques. What each reader decides about how the author has developed the theme will differ considerably. In the final step of writing the thesis statement, the writer can draw on the theme itself and on the author’s techniques.

Here is one example: The concept of family is crucial in The Graveyard Book. The protagonist, nicknamed Bod, is left an orphan after his parents are killed and he narrowly escapes. He is guided and protected by Miss Lupescu and numerous other graveyard denizens. While Bod is grateful for their nurturing, he also understands that he is a solitary figure and, to some extent, his destiny for other purposes. While the others aim to keep him safe within the prescribed areas, he finds it irresistibly tempting to go beyond the confines.

This analysis encourages us to identify the importance of family as the primary theme and the relationship between nature and nurture—as shown by Bod's biological and adopted families—as a secondary theme. Each reader might see a different relationship as more important, so the thesis would reflect that opinion. One thesis statement based on those themes could read,

The author develops the theme that a family is a community of caregivers as well as a person’s biological kin by detailing Bod’s relationship to Miss Lupescu as a second mother.

Your thesis statement should be specific about what the theme is.  A good example of a theme for this book is that we all have to grow up sometime, and part of growing up is leaving our childhood behind.

In The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, Bod learns that part of growing up is leaving childhood things behind.

When Bod grows up, he has to accept that this means leaving the safety of the graveyard.

The first chapter of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book introduces several themes that continue throughout the novel.

First, the theme of life and death and the line between them shows up in clear relief. The baby's parents are killed, but they live on. His mother can appear to the residents of the graveyard and ask them to care of her son. The residents of the graveyard are not, of course, "alive" in the usual sense of the word, but they certainly live even though they are dead. Gaiman blurs the lines between life and death in creative and interesting ways.

The theme of community also appears in this first chapter. The residents of the graveyard live in community with one another. They make decisions together, and they determine that they will cooperate to raise this living child who has wandered into their midst. Even the mysterious Silas takes part in the responsibility for the child's life.

In this first chapter, we are also introduced to the theme of good versus evil. The mysterious Jack who murders the child's parents and sister is clearly evil. The residents of the graveyard, despite the fact that most people fear ghosts and other creatures of the night, appear to be good. We are asked to step out of our usual fear of the supernatural to look deeper into their already beginning love for the child.

Finally, this chapter gives us a hint of another theme of The Graveyard Book: fate and free will. The child wakes up for no apparent reason, climbs out of his crib, leaves the house, and toddles to the one place where he will be safe from Jack. Is this coincidence? Fate? We are left wondering as the chapter ends.