Bone Gap

Ruby, L. & Bittner, D. (2015). Bone gap. Solon, Ohio: Findaway World, LLC.

Awards: Printz Award Winner (2016)

Summary:

A girl has gone missing from a small town. No signs point to foul play. She must have left on her own. But Finn O’Sullivan knows different. He saw the man who kidnapped her. Only he cannot describe the man’s face. Because of this, no one in town believes him.

Join Finn in his search for the truth. See where his journey leads on his quest to find Roza, and how a seemingly open town can hide many secrets.

Reaction:

This book provides a unique plot. The reader is tricked into believing they are in a contemporary setting, in small-town U.S.A, until they are transported to another world through Roza. A world where a man attempts to woo a beautiful young woman into loving him by giving her any and everything she could ever want. A man that can use the dead to do his bidding.

There is a heavy focus on beauty and its value in society. Petey, viewed as ugly throughout her small town, and Roza, viewed as beautiful by everyone she comes across. Both are burdened by their looks in different ways. The small town picks on Finn and his strangeness because no one knows how he is truly afflicted. Until Petey.

The timeline can be a little confusing. There are parts of the story that focus on Roza in her kidnappers quarters and then flash back to her experiences in America. It can be a little disorienting for the reader.

Some of the more minor characters have small but important parts of the story. Miguel, Finn’s best friend, helps Roza find the O'Sullivan barn. And Sean falls in love with Roza. Sean is also a healer, often bandaging up Roza or his brother. Both of these characters are interesting in their own way, and it would have been nice if they had been developed more. Author Laura Ruby focused more on Finn, Petey, and Roza. Petey and Roza are two very different yet strong characters that continue to grow throughout the book.

Connections:

Activities:

• This book has a lot of relevance to the #MeToo Movement. Discuss with students what the #MeToo Movement is. This could go deeper after analyzing Petey and Roza (especially Roza’s) experience with men and beauty.
• Pair up students. One student will get a picture of a person - celebrity or someone random. Everyone can get a different picture or everyone can get the same. The other student will get a piece of paper, pencil, and colored pencils. Student 1 will describe the physical appearance of the person in the picture and Student 2 will have to draw them.
• If everyone has the same image, give the students a few options as to the picture that could have been given. Let them decide who they got a picture of.
• Have Student 1 try to figure out which picture their partner drew between 3 choices.
• This activity will help readers understand the struggle Finn has with placing faces.

• Write a newspaper article describing Roza’s disappearance. Include background information about how she made it to the states.
• Read the myth of Hades and Persephone. Then read excerpts from Roza’s experience with her kidnapper. Compare the two experiences.
• What is beauty? Have students complete a multimedia project on what they believe is beautiful with evidence. This is open to interpretation.
• Write a narrative from the kidnapper’s point of view.  
• Present various articles and/or videos about prospagnosia.
• Petey and Finn often discuss the ridiculousness of college essays. Have students choose one of the prompts to write. Students could also come up with their own prompts.
• Summarize the book or a chapter in a poem.
• The writing is rich in imagery. Some examples:
  “Long honey waves streaked with ropes of pink spilled down her back.” (pg 43)
• “Petey blinked so rapidly it was like watching the beating of wings.” (pg 67)
• “His teeth were long and yellow, his tail a spiked lashi, his eyes the color of tombs.” (pg 111)
• “...but Roza’s eardrums felt like overblown balloons, her heart hammered in her chest, and her tongue was heavy as stone in her mouth.” (pg 113)
• “A white ball of feathers exploded from the weeds and hit him right in the stomach.” (pg 143)
• “She laughed so much it cracked him open, swapping his insides for his outsides, as if he were wearing his own nerves for a coat.” (pg 278)
• “Dawn was spreading her rosy fingers in the sky when Sean finished twenty of the smallest, neatest, most careful stitches, his big fingers could manage, would ever manage.” (pg 326)
• Some of these and more examples within the book could be used for character description lessons, tone, and to indicate tone or a character’s emotions.

Other Magical Realism Books:

Ness, P. & Dowd, S. (2015). A monster calls. London: Walker Books.

Walton, L. (2014). The strange & beautiful sorrows of Ava Lavender. Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press.

Video:

[SciShow]. (2018, February 12). Would You Be Able to See Through Superman's Disguise? [Video File] Retrieved from https://youtu.be/nfZ6QSGsgxc