Bone - The Great Cow Race

Title : Bone : The Great Cow Race
Author : Jeff Smith
ISBN : 9780439706391

Plot - Fone, Phoney, and Smiley Bone are three Bone Characters caught up in a plot that would seem to be beyond themselves.  As this is one in a series of Graphic Novels by Jeff Smith, it covers these three characters as they have been taken in after being thrown out of their village, by Grandma, Thorn and others.  Fone is in love with Thorn, a young female villager, who seems to have a past of her own that comes up in dreams.  She has dreams of Dragons and maps and other such goings on.  They seemed to have increased since the Bones have come into the village.  This particular book deals with a Spring festival where Fone Bone decides he is going to confess his love for Thorn in a letter, and Smiley and Phoney Bone are set up in a plot to be able to take money from the villagers by setting up another character to beat the Grandmother character in a race.  They convince the villagers to bet against Grandmother because she was old.

Eventually the plots come crashing down together as a group of rat beings attack Fone bone and end up in the middle of this Cow race.  The "Phoney plot" becomes revealed and Grandmother has to rescue the more miscreant Bones.  The plot running through the story is about the history of Thorn and possibly how the Bones might be connected. Grandma knows more than she is letting on to Thorn and believe somehow the Bones may be connected in some way as well.

--Review--
Graphic Novels kind of have a dual way of reviewing them.  Part of the story is told through the dialogue of the characters,  but a great deal of the story is told through the visuals that are created on the page.  The novel is told with bright vivid colors that are modified slightly when dreams are being told.  Dreams and back story seem to have a more artistic feel to them with more detail to the drawings.  They do a good job of mixing what is going on in the current story with what the larger plot is, allowing for enjoyment of the individual novel and hooking a person effectively into the larger plot.  The interplay with the Bones is comedic and well done.

Reader's Annotation - If  you want someone to tickle your phony bone... or even your Phoney Bone, join the Bone's as they travel across the planes seeking to escape from evil rat creatures, and looking for dragons.  Join them as Grandma and Thorn go on a Cow Adventure with the Bones.

Information about the Author - As early as the age of ten, Jeff Smith was developing his characters for the Bone's in what would be his greatest graphic novel works.  He says that early development of his love for comics was developed by Charles Schultz and his famous Peanut comics, but other comics that inspired him include the Pogo series of comics.

The Bone series was originally published as a set of comics from 1991 to 2004.  Aside from Bone, Smith has worked with many different comic Characters including Captain Marvel, put out by DC Comics.  Overall Smith finds himself well connected and well-suited for the comic/graphic novel genre he has chosen.

Curriculum Ties - Discuss Graphic Novels as a literary format/genre. Literature
Comics as graphic Art.
How the Comic transformed itself into a Novel - Literature

Reading Level - Grade 9+

Book Talking Ideas - Discuss the use of the serial in literature - How effective is the use of serialization in literature? Have people discuss what secrets are being kept by the characters.  Have them try to guess what secrets they may be holding before reading the next book.

Challenge Issues - N/A

Why Included - I included this because I was interested in these characters and had seen this set of Graphic Novels at my work.