Nightwing's decision to patrol the streets rather than the rooftops shows he's committed to seeing the city from the perspective of its inhabitants — literally experiencing it at Ground Zero. As Dick himself reflects, “To understand how my home is changing... I have to see it from the same angles as everyone else who lives here.”

While cruising a newly built superhighway, Nightwing encounters a bedraggled woman wandering in and out of traffic. In true Dick Grayson fashion, he offers her a ride, thinking she might need medical care. (Can you imagine Batman picking up a hitchhiker?) But Nightwing’s act of kindness takes a bizarre turn when the woman pulls a knife on him, claiming to be a witch. Naturally, Nightwing is inclined to think she's having a mental breakdown or is under the influence of something.

The situation escalates when the woman starts bleeding from the eyes. Nightwing is anxious to get her to the hospital, but she insists they stay on the highway to reach "the crossroads." It's all very cryptic and supernatural. Their resulting struggle for control of the car concludes in a massive pileup. The woman vanishes, leaving behind countless casualties, including an injured Nightwing is left to question if she was even real. And if she wasn't, he's directly responsible for the disaster.

If a story about an orphaned boy, the soul survivor of a mass murder, being raised by the residents of a haunted graveyard sounds ghoulish, well, it is. But would you also believe it's charming?

Appropriately called The Graveyard Book, this 2008 novel is by English author Neil Gaiman who's best known for his macabre masterpiece, Coraline (2002). The Graveyard Book was his first full length novel after Coraline and it shares some of the same grim themes.

The story begins on the night of the murder when the young protagonist manages to free himself from his crib and wander out into the night just as a shadowy killer called "the man Jack" is doing in his mother, father and older sister. The tot ends up at the gates of the cemetery at the top of the hill, where the ghostly residents gather to debate his fate. When "the man Jack" shows up a few minutes later, it becomes all too obvious the child is alone and utterly vulnerable. The ghosts agree to protect him. A childless couple volunteer to act as his parents; and they appoint Silas – who may or may not be a vampire – to be his guardian as he can leave the cemetery and bring back food and other supplies for the boy. They name the toddler Nobody – "Bod" for short – and the graveyard becomes his permanent home. 

In many ways, the cemetery is the book's central character. Lavishly detailed by Gaiman, the reader comes to know every nook and cranny of the place, and appreciate it not just as a domicile for spooks, but as a refuge for the living. Bestowed with "the freedom of the graveyard," Bod is able to move about its confines safely, interacting with both the dead and the various types of wildlife which inhabit its wooded hills.

Life here is idyllic in many ways. Bod forms friendly, even loving attachments to many of the spirits who share his sprawling backyard, some of whom date back to England's prehistory. They play with him, teach him, occasionally fight with him. But it's never quite the same as having living, breathing people around. So Bod is particularly excited when he befriends a girl named Scarlett who lives in the nearby village and comes to the graveyard to play. Scarlett's parents are convinced their daughter's friend is a harmless figment of her imagination, but this changes when Bod takes her to see the most unique feature of the cemetery: an ancient Celtic crypt. The crypt was never used by the chieftain for whom it was built, but that doesn't mean the space is unoccupied. A serpent-like creature who calls itself "The Sleer" guards the place and does its best to terrify the two children. After Scarlett describes her adventure to her parents, she's not allowed to return to the cemetery and soon moves away.

His brief friendship with Scarlett makes Bod long even more to explore the outside world. But Silas is quick to remind him "the man Jack" who killed his parents is still at large and still hunting him. To help protect him against this lingering threat, the graveyard residents instruct Bod in a variety of supernatural skills. He learns how to manifest himself in other people's dreams, slip in and out of the shadows and vanish from sight the instant someone's attention is turned. Eventually, he's allowed to attend the local school, but when he uses these special powers to intimidate some bullies, his academic career is cut short.

The book culminates with "the man Jack's" elaborate attempt to draw the now teenaged Bod out of the graveyard, using Scarlett as bait. But details behind why "the man Jack" is so interested in the youth may be The Graveyard Book's weakest point. When the final reveal comes, it's like a whodunnit novel where vital clues were withheld from the reader. I enjoyed the ambiguous nature of "the man Jack" and the murderous fraternal order to which he belongs, but I wanted to understand why he was particularly interested in Bod. In the end, the explanation seemed vague and the book's central mystery wasn't as satisfying as many of its sub-plots.

Regardless, The Graveyard Book is a compelling, often touching novel with themes and characters young adults will gobble up. Gaiman is particularly adept at constructing compelling dialogue and historical dialects. In fact, if I can bestow a high compliment, he's the best I've found at this since I read Robert Louis Stevenson as a teenager.

The Graveyard Book won numerous awards – including a Hugo, Newbery, and Carnegie Medal – and deserved every one of them. It's the first title I've read by Gaiman. It won't be the last.

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I first read Lord of the Flies, by British author William Golding, in the late 1980s and quickly became obsessed. Having just graduated from high school, I knew the joys and ugliness of teenage tribalism well. A film adaptation starring Balthazar Getty was released soon after, and since I managed a video rental store, I watched it and the 1963 version multiple times, increasing my admiration for the book. (FYI, the ‘63 film is far superior if you need to choose one.)

Flies may have been Golding’s debut novel, but its themes were something he understood very well. During World War II, he served in the Royal Navy and took part in the bloody D-Day landings in Normandy. The reality of war deeply influenced his writing, and when he started working on Flies, he, like the rest of humanity, was living under the specter of nuclear annihilation at the dawn of the Cold War. The book’s brilliance lies in distilling these existential threats into a deceptively simple survival story on a South Pacific island.  

The story begins with a wartime evacuation during what we assume is some kind of nuclear exchange. A plane crashes on a deserted island and a group of British preadolescent schoolboys are the only survivors. Ralph, by virtue of age and physicality, becomes the leader. He befriends Piggy and uses his glasses to start a signal fire. Ralph’s leadership seems very wise for his age as he encourages the group to stay positive, gather resources, and maintain the fire for rescue.

However, the boys’ resolve fades as they grow distracted. Fear of a fearsome jungle "beast" takes hold, and a rival boy named Jack gains influence by promising to hunt the monsters down. During one hunt, the signal fire dies out, and a rescue ship passes by without stopping.

The boys’ tribalism worsens when a fighter pilot’s corpse lands by parachute onto the island and is mistaken for the “beast.” Jack creates his own tribe, offers a pig's head to the monster, and comes to represent authoritarianism and primal power, while Ralph symbolizes intellect and empathy. Although Ralph is initially baffled and repulsed by how easily the boys follow Jack’s fear-mongering, even he is not immune to mob rule. But his reluctance and regret for his own violent actions appear weak to Jack's tribe, who, now frenzied, hunt Ralph with tragic consequences. 

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