Funeral chapels are small churches used to conduct funeral services.  They are built in as many different styles as normal churches.

 

In this Scottish Book Trust podcast, the author explains that the image of a small boy in a graveyard was the inspiration behind Bod's adventures in the graveyard.

Fox cries are indeed uncannily human.

Amphitheatres are a kind of oval theatre or stadium with steep, raked seats, popular with the ancient Greeks and Romans.  The same shape occurs naturally in several locations across the world.

 

 

An obelisk is a monument, usually a four-sided column tapering to a pyramidal point.  It is a shape associated with ancient Egypt and a popular graveyard monument style.

This references the proverb "it takes a village to raise a child", which originates with the Igbo people of Nigeria, although many African cultures have similar sayings.

In a video Q & A, the author discusses the idea for Bod's name, which comes from a variant of a Thomas Noel poem about pauper's graves:

 

Rattle his bones over the stones;

He's only a Pauper, whom nobody owns!

"Listed" buildings are those given special protected status in the UK, restricting significant alteration or demolition.  Buildings are given this status because of architectural importance or historical interest.

In the eighteenth century it was the height of fashion to wear a wig, even if the wearer still possessed their own hair, and to apply powder to the wig to make it a white or grey colour.

This is a traditional English nursery rhyme:

 

The man in the moon came down too soon

And asked his way to Norwich

They sent him south and he burnt his mouth

By eating cold pease porridge

This is the popular nursery rhyme "Little Jack Horner", which can be traced to the mid 17th century:

 

Little Jack Horner

Sat in the corner,

Eating a Christmas pie;

He put in his thumb,

And pulled out a plum,

And said 'What a good boy am I!'

This is the folk ballad "Lord Randall".  The lyrics and music can be found here.

Listen on Spotify:   performed by   Harry Belafonte     Steeleye Span

Gaiman shows the society of the graveyard to be very similar to the society of the living.  In this tongue-in-cheek Colbert Report interview (available only in the US), Gaiman discusses the themes of life and death in The Graveyard Book.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Neil Gaiman
www.colbertnation.com
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Nearly two metres tall.  Hands are a unit of measurement used for the height of horses.

Mythos is rife with references to white or grey horses. While pure white horses are generally associated with heroes and deities, grey horses are often linked with death. One of the apocalyptic horseman, the "pale rider", is described in Revelation 6:8:

I looked, and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death

Though the Lady riding a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross is associated with various real and fictitious women, her statue evokes the image of the "Lady on the Grey".