Give Me Back My Bones -- Perfect Picture Book Fridays!

Title: Give Me Back My Bones!
Author: Kim Norman
Illustrator: Bob Kolar
Publisher: Candlewick Press, 2019

Themes: Bone Structure, Pirates, Poetry, Halloween, Skeletons

First Lines:
A stormy Night has passed here
and toppled every mast here.
The ocean, flowing fast here,
has scattered all my bones!

Why I love this book:

• A fun way to teach a child the names of the bones in our bodies.
• A Pirate story!
• Poetry
• Kim uses Anadiplosis (not a dinosaur) but the repetition of the last word in each of the lines of poetry. 
• In the first three lines of each page/poem, her meter matches and ends of the lines use the same word. Then as she is showing us which bone the skeleton is seeking, the meter and last word change. The first three lines skip along at a fast fun beat. The fourth line is shorter yet takes longer to say making the name of the bone sticky and memorable.
• Beautiful under water illustrations.
• I am always curious to figure out how illustrations are made. It was a challenge for this book. I was pretty sure it was digital art, but that was a guess and I wanted to be sure. I found a sentence on a Pinterest post that says his work is created with Adobe Illustrator. Bob Kolar has a way of making the images cartoony yet realistic. 

I guess what I mean by that is there is a playfulness to the illustrations and yet, you can tell there was research and an understanding of the subject. The fish are recognizable as real fish you could see in the ocean. The bones are simplified, yet you know what they are.

I love the way he uses texture to create depth and dimensionality.

The color scheme with the dark background and bright foreground is engaging.

Activities and Resources:

Don't wait until Talk Like A Pirate Day to share this book. It would be fun now around Halloween. If you are talking about the human body and want to teach the names of the skeletal bones, share the book. Share it in a poetry unit to teach the meter and anadiplosis style of poetry.

Make a skeleton:
This one is 3 dimensional
This one is more Halloweenie
One more with lots to cut out.

Pick up a guide to ocean fish and see if you can identify the fish and other creatures in the illustrations.

Check Out Bob Kolar's Website. You can follow him on Instagram too.
Check out Kim's Website. You can follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

Be sure to check out more #PPBF posts at Susanna Hill's Blog. So many wonderful books. So little time.