Saturday, November 26, 2016

Bone: Out from Boneville

Graphic novels are a relatively new phenomenon. I've never given them much thought, but that was before I read Bone: Out from Boneville (2005) by Jeff Smith. Having never read any of the books in the Bone series, it was a little unusual. However, I find the graphic novel aspect refreshing, as it is a different type of read since it is a change from the norm.

Out from Boneville is about three cousins -- Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone -- who have been cast out of Boneville because of Phoney's financial indiscretions. The cousins get separated in the desert and each finds his way to the same large valley, which is filled with people and all sorts of creatures. After several misadventures, the three cousins manage to reunite on a farm deep in the valley. Being part of a series, the reader discovers some dark, behind the scenes characters who are out to get the three Bone cousins, and have future plans for the trio.
Graphic novels exercise a different set of reading skills. Because it is made up of a series of panels, the reader has to determine the order of the panels. Given that it has copious amount of illustration, the reader can and must use visual cues in order to fully understand the story. The reader doesn't need details in the text since many of those details can be given visually. Also, the graphic novel reader can "see" sounds. In Out from Boneville, for example, we see Phoney yelling at the other two through large, bold words in his text balloons. A page later, we see the "ZZZZ" of a cloud of locusts descending upon our hapless trio.

While Out from Boneville may not be appropriate content-wise for my kindergartners, it might be just about right for third-graders. I feel like we would do a read through together, so that I can help them get the hang of following panels in the correct order. However, we could also do some of the same things we do with other stories, such as comparing and contrasting the characters using Venn diagrams, as well as B-M-E organizers.

I've seen several students at my current school reading several books from the Bone series. I feel like any of these from this series would be good titles for a classroom library.

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