ParaNorman, or How to Tame a Zombie

In the small town where seventeen-year-old Norman Babcock lived, he was considered strange. This was because he saw things others couldn't: ghosts, the spirits of the dead. Norman talked to them on the way to school, on the street, even at home—for example, with his deceased grandmother. Because of this, his peers called him "Paronorman" and bullied him in every way: they pushed him in the hallways, mocked his stories of the supernatural, and ignored him during recess. To them, he was a freak, a boy "out of this world. "There was no understanding in his family either. Norman's father categorically rejected his abilities, dismissing them as fiction and even forbade his son from talking about ghosts. Every time Norman tried to share what he saw, irritation and distrust were visible in his parent's eyes. His mother tried to be more gentle, but she, too, could not fully accept her son's unusual nature. Only his older sister, Courtney, sometimes stood up for him, though she didn't entirely believe his stories. One cloudy day, Norman was walking along a narrow path behind the school, where he usually hid from the bullying. He looked at the ground, turning over in his head the words he'd heard from his classmates, and was oblivious to everything around him. Characters: Norman, 17, Courtney (his older sister, 19), his mom and dad, his deceased grandmother, Neil Dawn (Norman's best friend, 17), Mitch Dawn (Neil's older brother, 20), various bullies, etc.