10 August 2010

Life Goes On

Module 10
Smith, J. (2005). Bone: Out from Boneville. New York: Graphix/Scholastic.

Fone Bone and his cousins, Phoney and Smiley have been run out of town. They are lost in the desert and become separated by a storm of locusts. Fone Bone eventually meets and falls in love with the beautiful Thorn. His feelings are not reciprocated, but he stays happily with Thorn until rat creatures and fears for his cousins drive him to the town where he meets up with them again. Complex plot twists foretell many additions to the series.

My View:
Bone has been part of our lives for several years now. Even before Will had learned to read beyond his Title 1 books, he enjoyed poring over Bone. As each new book came out, he would save his money to buy it, and now, at nine years old, he is a Bone aficionado. Tom, too.

What makes Bone so appealing? Maybe it is the sense that these little folk are involved in something larger than life. They don’t know how things will turn out, but they (especially Granny Ben, Fone Bone, Lucius, and Thorn) are going to try their darndest to make sure their loved ones are protected. I love how even in the middle of the rat creatures incidents or the incursion of the “invisible” dragons, life goes on. That is a good lesson.


“A whimsical journey, cunningly told. It combines fable with American legend in a tale of greed, friendship, and struggle. . . . The story is well paced with smooth transitions. It is dark, witty, mysterious, and exciting. The full-color art reflects that of classic comic books . . . . However, the animation and fresh story line put Smith in a league of his own.”
La Counte, S.; Jones, T. E.; Toth, L.; Charnizon, M.; Grabarek, D.; Raben, D. (2005). Out from Boneville. School Library Journal 51(5), 164.

Ideas for the library: I think one of the best things I can do to promote this book is order multiple copies often. Jamie’s book group was going to read this, so I supplemented our three copies with four more, and now I just looked in the catalog and all but one is checked out!

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