Bravery, love and the meaning of happiness are all themes in the children’s book Coraline by Neil Gaiman. While exploring her new home, Coraline finds a locked door that at first appears to lead nowhere. This door, however, starts Coraline on a journey that helps her discover her own bravery. She saves her mother and father, as well as three children, from the grips of an evil creature who has created a reverse universe beyond that locked door.

Coraline fancies herself an explorer as she spends her first weeks in her new home checking out every inch of the grounds. One rainy day, Coraline discovers a locked door as she explores the inside of her home. Her mother shows her this door has been bricked up and leads nowhere, but Coraline finds herself drawn to it. One day when her parents are both away from home, she unlocks the door and discovers that the bricks are gone. She walks through to an apartment just like hers. A woman and man who describe themselves as her other mother and other father treat her well and try to get her to stay. They tell her that in order for her to stay in their world, she must allow them to sew black buttons over her eyes. She refuses and leaves.

When Coraline returns to her world she finds that her parents are missing. A black cat whom she befriended in the other world, shows her that her parents have been trapped by the other mother. Coraline realizes she must draw on her own bravery to re-enter the other mother’s world in order to rescue her parents. Once back in the other mother’s world, Coraline meets three children who had been lured to stay with the other mother years ago. Coraline agrees to find the souls of these children so they can find peace.

In order to perform the rescues, Coraline proposes a challenge to the other mother. If Coraline can find the souls of the three children and locate her parents, the other mother will allow them all to go free. Using her intelligence and her common sense, Coraline searches the house to find the souls of all three children. Using a cat she has befriended as interference, Coraline grabs a snow globe that she realizes contains her parents and gets everyone, including the cat, out. Unfortunately, the other mother’s right hand is caught in the door and severed. It wreaks havoc in Coraline’s world trying to find the key to the door so it can return home. In her final act of bravery, Coraline sets up a trap to catch the hand. Her trap sends the hand and key tumbling into an abandoned well from which Coraline hopes they will never emerge.