Bone, Volume 1: Out From Boneville by Jeff Smith

Smith, J. (2005). Bone, vol. 1: Out from boneville. New York, NY: Graphix.

Bone, Volume 1: Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith is the first book in the Bone graphic novel series. In this volume, Phoney Bone has been exiled from Boneville for his self-serving misdeeds. His cousins, Fone Bone and Smiley Bone, agree to help Phoney and accompany him on the journey out of town and through a desert. Shortly after their escape from the town, they encounter an unfortunate locust swarm and are suddenly split apart. Each one finds their way to a mysterious forest in a valley where they spend the winter encountering strange beasts, meeting interesting people, and trying to reunite. Finally, they find one another and are soon headed off on another adventure to go to the spring fair and ultimately find their way back to Boneville.

Since this book is a graphic novel, it would be a good mentor text to use during Writer’s Workshop. Students could create a storyboard to tell their own story. Then they could use the storyboard drawings to tell the story while adding text and dialogue. Students could either start their own graphic novel series or use the Bone series as their inspiration and write another installment.

As with all graphic novels, the illustrations are SO important in this book. The illustrations provide foreshadowing, show emotion, and allow the reader to make inferences about characters and plot. Smith’s illustrations are fun and comic-book like which many students would enjoy. I also find the use of illustrations with text very useful for lower level readers.

Personally, I did not love this story because I found some of the characters to be a bit annoying and unlikable. However, I know for a fact that this series was very popular among my 3rd and 4th grade male students! They tend to like the silly humor and comic book like drawings.

(Image retrieved from amazon.com)