Her name started as a typo
Neil Gaiman meant to type "Caroline". His fingers typed "Coraline" instead, and he decided it looked like a real name that nobody had used yet.
The Foyer
Welcome in, my love
This museum has eight rooms. Walk them in order or jump to the one you want. Every fact on these walls is real, except for a few buttons in the jar. Those ones are from me.
Please touch everything
The Coraline Museum · Admit one
my love
Valid in this world and every other one.
No. 0001 · Never expires
Keep this
Hall I
The Girl with Blue Hair
Coraline Jones is bored, brave, curious and very hard to fool. This room is about her.
From Michigan to Oregon
In the film she is eleven and has just moved with her parents from Pontiac, Michigan, to the Pink Palace Apartments in Ashland, Oregon. She misses her friends and has nothing to do.
The blue hair came from the film
The book never gives her blue hair. The filmmakers gave her the bright blue bob, and now it is the first thing anyone pictures.
The dragonfly clip
She keeps her bangs back with a dragonfly hair clip. Add a yellow raincoat and rain boots and you have the outfit every Coraline costume starts with.
An explorer from the first scene
The film opens with her walking the overgrown grounds with a forked stick, dowsing for an old well. She finds it, and nearly falls in.
Her voice
Dakota Fanning voices Coraline in the film.
You're sweet, kind and really cute. Just so you know. xo, J
Hall II
The Pink Palace
An old pink house split into apartments, full of odd neighbours. Here is the residents' register.
- Mom · voiced by Teri Hatcher
Mel Jones
Always busy and usually on deadline. She and Charlie write a gardening catalogue together, and neither of them actually gardens.
- Dad · voiced by John Hodgman
Charlie Jones
The family cook. Coraline is not a fan of what he makes.
- Neighbour · voiced by Robert Bailey Jr.
Wybie Lovat
Short for Wyborne. He was created for the film so Coraline would have someone to talk to. He does not exist in the book.
- No address · voiced by Keith David
The Cat
A black cat with no name. He never says a word in the real world, but in the Other World he talks, and he knows far more than he lets on.
- Ground floor · Jennifer Saunders & Dawn French
Miss Spink & Miss Forcible
Two retired actresses with a house full of Scottish terriers. They read Coraline's tea leaves and warn her she is in danger.
- Top floor · voiced by Ian McShane
Mr. Bobinsky
A retired acrobat who is training a circus of jumping mice. He can never get her name right and keeps calling her Caroline.
- Landlady
Mrs. Lovat
Wybie's grandmother owns the Pink Palace. When she was a girl, her twin sister disappeared in that house.
- Behind the little door · also Teri Hatcher
The Other Mother
Voiced by the same actress as Coraline's real mom, which is exactly why she feels so familiar at first.
Out of everyone at the Pink Palace, you'd be the sweetest neighbour by far. xo, J
Hall III
The Other World
Through the little door is a copy of Coraline's life where everything is better. Almost everything. Compare the two.
| Who or what | In the real world | In the Other World |
|---|---|---|
| Mom | Typing all day, too busy to play. | Cooks a huge welcome feast and wants to spend every minute with her. |
| Dad | Makes dinners Coraline won't eat. | Sings her a song he wrote about her, at a piano with mechanical hands. |
| The garden | Muddy and overgrown. | Glows at night. From above, it is shaped like Coraline's face. |
| Wybie | Talks too much. | Can't say a word. The Other Mother made him quiet so Coraline would like him more. |
| Mr. Bobinsky | His mice aren't ready to perform. | A full jumping mouse circus. The mice turn out to be rats. |
| Spink & Forcible | Retelling the shows they did long ago. | Young again, putting on a trapeze show for an audience of dogs. |
| The Cat | Silent. | Talks, and can walk between the two worlds. |
| The edges | The world keeps going. | Walk far enough from the house and everything fades into white mist. |
| Your eyes | Your own. | Buttons, sewn on, if you agree to stay. |
The Beldam
The ghost children call the Other Mother "the beldam", an old word for a witch or a hag. Her true form is thin and spider-like, with needles for fingers.
The ghost children
Three children who said yes to the button eyes long ago. Coraline promises to find their eyes and set them free.
The seeing stone
Miss Spink and Miss Forcible give Coraline a stone with a hole in it. Looking through it helps her find what the Other Mother has hidden.
No world is perfect. Ours is still my favorite. xo, J
Hall IV
The Workshop
The 2009 film is stop motion. Every movement you see is a real puppet, moved by hand a tiny bit at a time and photographed one frame at a time.
207,000+possible facial expressions for Coraline, mixed from swappable face pieces
9½″about how tall a Coraline puppet stands
1ststop-motion feature film shot in stereoscopic 3D from start to finish
Knitted with needles as thin as a hair
Coraline's tiny sweaters were knitted by the artist Althea Crome, using needles about as thin as a human hair.
Printed faces
Her faces were made on 3D printers, in two halves: one for the eyes and brows, one for the mouth. Swapping the halves gave her those 207,000+ expressions. The line where they met was erased digitally, frame by frame.
LAIKA's first film
Coraline was the first feature from the studio LAIKA. It was shot on sets built in a huge warehouse in Hillsboro, Oregon, near Portland.
The director
Henry Selick directed it. He also directed The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach.
The music
The score is by Bruno Coulais, with a children's choir singing words in a made-up language. The song the Other Father sings is by They Might Be Giants.
Oscar night
It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It lost to Up.
They moved tiny puppets one frame at a time for years. That's how carefully I want to love you. xo, J
Hall V
The Library
Before the movie, Coraline was a book. This shelf follows her from the first page to the big screen, twice.
- 1990s
The story begins at bedtime. Neil Gaiman starts writing it for his daughter Holly. It takes him about ten years, and he finishes it for his younger daughter, Maddy.
- 2002
The book comes out, with spooky ink illustrations by Dave McKean.
- 2003
The awards arrive. It wins the Hugo Award for Best Novella, then the Nebula Award and the Bram Stoker Award too.
- 2008
A graphic novel version, adapted and drawn by P. Craig Russell.
- 2009
The film opens in the US on February 6. That same year, an off-Broadway musical opens in New York with songs by Stephin Merritt.
- 2010
Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature.
- 2024
Back in theaters in 3D for its 15th anniversary, and it becomes a hit all over again.
Every room in this museum was made thinking about you. xo, J
Hall VI
The Button Jar
Every button hides a fact. Most are about Coraline. A few are about you.
How it works
Pick any button from the jar. Real buttons only. Nobody is sewing anything onto anybody.
0 of 14 buttons opened
Hall VII
The Quiz Room
Seven questions about everything in the museum. Let's see how many you get.
Hall VIII
The Last Room
The final exhibit is a letter.
my love,
The Other Mother offered Coraline everything: the best food, the brightest garden and a whole world built around her. In return, all she asked for was Coraline's eyes.
Coraline said no. She went home to the rain, the mud and the dinners she didn't like, because the real world was the one with the people she actually loved.
That's how I feel about you. I don't need a perfect world. I need this one, because you're in it.
So I made you a little museum about your favorite character, because you're my favorite person.
Love you in every world,
Jaylen