Boney

Starred review from August 15, 2022
In an open-ended picture book focused on a child’s internality, young, pale-skinned Annabelle, hiking with her father and dog, finds a good-size bone on the forest floor that piques her curiosity. She wonders if it might have once belonged to a deer, or a bear, or a wolf, each shown in dark silhouettes that call to mind cave art. Annabelle names the now-washed and beribboned object Boney, trucks it to the playground in a wagon, and tucks it into bed in a shoebox, using “rolled-up socks for a pillow.” That night, she dreams that she and a deer, a bear, and a wolf are running together through the woods. The next morning, she wakes up sad, and in the quiet scene that follows, Annabelle treats the bone with newfound solemnity. Sly, naïf-style colored pencil, watercolor, and digital illustrations by Tolstikova (The Bad Chair) contribute to an atmosphere of alternating lightheartedness and unease, while Fagan (Water, Water) focuses on Annabelle’s attentiveness to her own emotions and physicality (“She went to the mirror and looked at her own sad face”) in a poetic volume that raises keen questions about ephemerality, connection, and regard across the natural world. Ages 3–6.

September 23, 2022
Grades K-2 This strange story of a girl who uses an animal bone as a toy may baffle or even repel some readers and may cause others to reflect on what we owe other creatures, living or dead. The story starts with a little girl and her father coming across a bone during a walk in the forest. The father, thinking it's an animal bone, lets the girl take it home, where she ties a ribbon around it, seats it at the table, takes it to the playground, and gives it a shoebox for a bed. That night, the girl dreams of running wild with animals. Upon awakening, she feels sad, and the bone ends up being buried in the backyard. The textured illustrations, done in watercolors, colored pencils, and digital media, will hold readers' interest as they move from cutout-like drawings of the humans to full silhouettes of the animals, and a Where the Wild Things Are vibe may lead them to think about the proper uses of nature.

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November 1, 2022
While hiking, Annabelle and her father discover a bone. "'A bone from an animal?' Annabelle asked." At home they give the bone a good scrub, and Annabelle ties a ribbon around it. She takes "Boney" to the park and pushes it in a swing, and slides down the slide with Boney in her lap. That night she dreams about the deer, bear, or wolf that Boney might have come from, and she wakes up feeling sad. She buries Boney in her yard and recites a poem she creates for the occasion: "The deer and the bear and the wolf are running. And I am running with them." The story closes with Annabelle and a friend going to the park together. Fagan's storytelling is simple but deeply felt. The direct prose, much of it dialogue, and Tolstikova's childlike mixed-media illustrations convey the emotional depth of the seemingly small experience and Annabelle's thoughtful nature. Maeve Visser Knoth

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2022
While hiking, Annabelle and her father discover a bone. "'A bone from an animal?' Annabelle asked." At home they give the bone a good scrub, and Annabelle ties a ribbon around it. She takes "Boney" to the park and pushes it in a swing, and slides down the slide with Boney in her lap. That night she dreams about the deer, bear, or wolf that Boney might have come from, and she wakes up feeling sad. She buries Boney in her yard and recites a poem she creates for the occasion: "The deer and the bear and the wolf are running. And I am running with them." The story closes with Annabelle and a friend going to the park together. Fagan's storytelling is simple but deeply felt. The direct prose, much of it dialogue, and Tolstikova's childlike mixed-media illustrations convey the emotional depth of the seemingly small experience and Annabelle's thoughtful nature.

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)