Precious Bones

Gr 4–7—Set in Florida in 1949, this coming-of-age story is Southern Gothic for the middle-grade crowd. Bones's idyllic life in the swamps with her parents is uprooted when an out of towner is found murdered and her father is the prime suspect. The 10-year-old's narration imbues the book with a folksy, down-home flavor reminiscent of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Shiloh (Atheneum, 1991). However, the overuse of the Southern vernacular occasionally grates, especially with regard to the dialogue. Although the narrative is built around a murder, at the heart of the book is the protagonist's maturation process; like an age-appropriate To Kill a Mockingbird, it's Bones's interactions with well-developed, often-eccentric characters that shape this story. There's the reclusive but good-hearted Miss Eunice (a Boo Radley-esque character who Bones initially suspects is a witch due to her father's wild stories); Mr. Speed, a young man left physically and emotionally battered after the war, and Bones's unpredictable but loving half Native American father. Issues of race and gender are explored in a cursory way as well, but there's plenty of fun mixed in to keep the mood from getting too heavy, such as the child's adventures in the swamp with her best friend, Little Man. Though the story's resolution is somewhat predictable, many readers will find it wholly satisfying.—Mahnaz Dar, formerly at Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City