Bone's Gift

Reviewed by: Elizabeth Andersen - Westbrook High School, Westbrook, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: July 10, 2018

Review

Did Bone’s mother die because of her “gift”? When Bone receives a mysterious note in her pocket questioning her mother’s cause of death, she begins to seek answers. “Gifts” run in Bone’s family; Bone’s gift is the ability to see memories just by touching objects while her mother’s “gift” was the ability to heal. Set in southwest Virginia in the 1940s, Smibert paints a memorable picture of coal town in the midst of WWII. Bone’s future becomes uncertain when her father is drafted into the war, so she relies on her “gift” to see into her family’s past to find answers to heal family rifts and look to the future. Blending together history, Appalachia storytelling traditions, and magical realism, and mystery, this story will appeal to a wide-range of readers. This is the first book in Smibert’s Ordinary Objects Trilogy.

Overall Book Score: very good