Give Me Back My Bones!

Starred review from May 1, 2019
In a watery anatomy lesson, a pirate skeleton gathers up and reconnects its scattered bones. As it goes, Norman's rollicking rhymes cleverly incorporate each major bone's common and formal names: "Collar me a collarbone, / the way-down-where-I-swaller bone, / a handy parrot-hauler bone-- / I claim my clavicle." She tracks her skeletal buccaneer's sandy-bottom reassembly from skull to "fair phalanges." Sandwiched between visual keys on the endpapers (in separate pieces in the front and assembled and accoutered in the rear), Kolar scatters simplified but recognizable body parts (plus the requisite peg leg) across sea beds well-populated with colorful tropical fish and other marine denizens. Several of these pitch in to help before the narrative leaves the finished skeleton posing heroically atop a sunken ship with a spyglass clutched in its metacarpals: "There's treasure to be found here-- / I feel it in my bones!" Budding biologists as well as general fans of pirates, poetry, and wordplay will agree--and it makes a fuller (and less freighted) alternative to Bob Barner's Dem Bones (1996) and other versions of the old teaching spiritual. Both macabre and cheery--a rare treat. (Picture book. 6-8)

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September 9, 2019

PreS-Gr 2-At the bottom of the ocean, a pirate's skeleton has become scattered. Piece by piece, it is retrieved from its marine home and reassembled. While doing so, it sings a little shanty describing major bones from the scapula to the mandible. These are not sterile, dictionary descriptions, rather they are quite playful, such as describing a skull as "the pirate's flag-of-dread bone." Norman's jaunty scheme reuses an ending word in the first three lines, before breaking off in the final line with a different one and some alliteration. It is a structure that places stress on the actual term in a memorable way. Even the digital illustrations keep the focus on the topical character through the color choices. The depths are a darker blue, and nothing else has that exact shade of white or gray. VERDICT For preschool and kindergarten students curious about the inner workings of the human body, this is an engaging seasonal introduction to one aspect of it.-Rachel Forbes, Oakville Public Library, Ont.

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2019
A pirate skeleton, upon finding its bones have been scattered at sea, implores readers to assist in putting itself back together. The jaunty rhyming text is both funny and informative regarding human anatomy ("Who can spot my shoulder blade... / Oh, scapula, come back!"), with clearly labeled diagrams at the beginning and end. Kolar's digital undersea illustrations are friendly and understated, with humerus, er, �cf2]humorous�cf1] details.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

September 1, 2019
A pirate skeleton, upon finding its bones have been scattered in the sea, implores readers, in jaunty rhyme, to assist in putting itself back together: Help me find my head bone, / my pillowed-on-the-bed bone, / the pirate's flag-of-dread bone? / I'm scouting out my skull. The text is both funny and informative regarding human anatomy? Who can spot my shoulder blade? / Oh, scapula, come back! ?with clearly labeled diagrams at the beginning and end. It's a little morbid, but Kolar's digital undersea illustrations are friendly, cartoony, and understated, with humerus, er, humorous details (i.e., a squid making off with the pirate's radius, ulna, and belt) that are all about silliness. elissa Gershowitz

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)