Module 8: Doll Bones

Book Summary

Zach, Poppy, and Alice are longtime friends that have been playing a long running imaginative game with their toys. This game includes magic, pirates, princesses, thieves, and many other fantasy elements. The Great Queen is a bone-china doll that rules the game. Now that the three students are in middle school, they are beginning to drift apart due to differing interests. Zach's father, in an effort to make Zach grow up, throws out the toys. Instead of telling the girls the truth, Zach tells them he never wants to play again. Poppy begins to have dreams that the Queen wants them to return her to her grave. She convinces the friends to set off on an adventure to return the Queen to her grave three hours away. The adventure does not go according to plan and the three friends find themselves in some trouble along the way, but in the end find the importance of their friendship as they change.

APA Reference of the Book
Black, Holly. (2013). Doll Bones. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.
 
Impression
I am not a huge fantasy fan and was not really looking forward to reading this book. However, I ended up enjoying the book much more than I though. The fantasy elements of this book were subtle and used to drive the plot, but not necessarily the focus of this book. The book was more focused on the three main characters, their friendship, and how those relationships change and grow as young people mature. The Queen and the possible haunted aspect made the story more interesting, but did not distract from the main theme of this piece. I think that young people looking for a "scary" book will be disappointed with this book. In my opinion, the cover is by far the scariest element of the book. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, would recommend it to patrons, and include it in my library's collection. 

Professional Review

The shadowy threshold that lies between the fancies of childhood and the realities of the adult world can be awfully difficult to navigate, and that’s precisely where best friends Zach, Poppy, and Alice find themselves as they make their way through middle school. For years now, their friendship has centered on “the game,” a roleplaying fantasy in which the three pals bring out their best action figures and dolls and pretend to be various heroes and villains going on glorious adventures. Their fun abruptly comes to a halt when Zach’s father throws his dolls in the trash and informs him that it’s time to grow up; though furious, Zach feels his father may be right and ignores his friends’ pleas to return to the game. Poppy won’t give up so easily, however, and convinces Zach to join her and Alice on a last mission: one of her dolls has been visiting Poppy in her dreams, and Poppy believes the doll holds the spirit of a murdered girl who must be put to rest.

Black manages a careful balancing act of reality and fantasy, using the effectively creepy ghost story as the backdrop to a poignant exploration of what is lost along the way to adulthood. The dreamlike quality of the fantastical journey the kids undergo, pirating a dinghy on a local river and indulging in sweets-only meals, is superimposed against the urban decay of an economically depressed town, reminding readers that not all stories, especially in the real world, have happy endings. Indeed, reality can be quite painful for our heroes: Zach’s rage at his father comes as much from his father’s prolonged absence and sudden reappearance as his trashing of Zach’s dolls; Poppy’s exhausted parents barely notice her among her raft of siblings; Alice struggles to please her overbearing grandmother. The game offers each of them a refuge, and when Zach’s plan to quit and deprive the game of its hero alters the landscape of their pretend world, it’s not so much the magic of that place that the friends fear losing but its safety.

The threat that their looming adulthood carries is apparent in the story of Eleanor, the girl whose ghost who may be inhabiting the doll they call the Queen. It’s never quite clear if the ghost is real or merely another product of Poppy’s imagination, and the ambiguity creates a sinister and slightly disorienting air. The real Eleanor’s death as an adolescent, murdered at the hands of an unpredictable force, is a childhood fear come to fruition: that bad things can and do happen in ways that defy the safe conventions of storytelling. The efforts of Zach, Poppy, and Alice to set things right for Eleanor therefore feel wonderfully, if a bit hopelessly, naïve, lacing the bravery of their quest with a touch of melancholy.

The emotional journey is as satisfying as the actual adventure: the aforementioned pirating of small boats, along with midnight bus trips, narrow escapes [End Page 451] from well-intentioned librarians, and graveyard searches will keep readers turning the pages, even the tweens who yet experienced the sturm und drang of adolescence. Those readers who have weathered the storm, however, and who are mourning the world they once inhabited will find a kindred spirit in Poppy, whose lament, “I hate that everyone calls it growing up, but it seems like dying,” is keenly felt by nostalgics everywhere. (See p. 454 for publication information.)

Quealy-Gainer, K.(2013). Doll bones by Holly Black (review). Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, 66(10), 451-452. The Johns Hopkins University Press.

 
Library Uses

While I do not think this book is necessarily "scary," there is definitely a creepy element to it. I would include it in a "spooky" display around Halloween to encourage students to read higher quality literature than some of the typical Halloween books. In that display, I would also include The Night Gardener and The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy.