The Kneebone Boy [Hardcover]

Ellen Potter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2010 | Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up

Life in a small town can be pretty boring when everyone avoids you like the plague. But after their father unwittingly sends them to stay with an aunt who’s away on holiday, the Hardscrabble children take off on an adventure that begins in the seedy streets of London and ends in a peculiar sea village where legend has it a monstrous creature lives who is half boy and half animal. . . .

In this wickedly dark, unusual, and compelling novel, Ellen Potter masterfully tells the tale of one deliciously strange family and a secret that changes everything.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 6-8–Otto, Lucia, and Max are the Hardscrabble children, and one of them is the unidentified narrator. Otto, the oldest, hasn't spoken out loud since he was eight, when the children's mother vanished. Their father, Casper Hardscrabble, paints portraits of royal families, returning with stories of their adventures to tell his children. When he sends them to London to stay with his cousin, who turns out to be away on holiday, they make their way to their great-aunt Haddie, who lives in a life-size playhouse castle behind a forbiddingly real castle, once owned by the Kneebone family. From their great-aunt and others, the Hardscrabbles learn about the Kneebone boy, locked away in a tower in the castle because of some unnamed deformity, and decide that they must rescue him. Instead, their mission leads to the resolution of their own family mystery. This odd book doesn't know if it wants to be an "Unfortunate Events" clone or a straightforward mystery. It's certainly not a fantasy, as the narrator takes pains to make clear that anything magical in the book only appears to be magical and has a rational, logical explanation. That makes sense with the rational, logical explanation presented for Tess Hardscrabble's disappearance, which is actually very sad and distressing. Ultimately, there is little to care about here; not the characters, the plot, or the resolution, all of which makes The Kneebone Boy a low-priority purchase.Tim Wadham, St. Louis County Library, MO
© Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

Hilarious and heartbreaking, wild and down-to-earth, this story of dark family secrets starts off with all the conventional quest clichés. Since the three Hardscrabble kids’ mother mysteriously disappeared five years earlier, Dad will not talk about her, and the eldest, Otto, now 13, only communicates through sign language. After the kids get a hint that Mama may still be alive, they take off to find her, first in London and then in a small seaside town, where they search through a castle with dungeons, dragons, and secret passageways and try to save a young sultan held prisoner in a wild forest. Even fantasy fans may tire of the contrivances, but Potter keeps this genre adventure moving briskly, and the very end brings a huge surprise that Dad’s been in on all along. The combination of fantasy and realism makes a compelling story, and young people will relate easily to the characters’ struggles. As the author tells the reader, “All great adventures have moments that are really crap.” Grades 5-8. --Hazel Rochman

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Feiwel & Friends (September 14, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031237772X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312377724
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #692,985 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Like my character, Olivia Kidney, I grew up in a high-rise apartment building in New York City's Upper West Side. I think I always wanted to be a writer, even as a young kid. After graduating from college, I began writing short stories and a novel (for grownups), while working many odd (sometimes very odd) jobs. I worked as a dog groomer, a construction worker, and a waitress. Having lots of different jobs is a terrific advantage for a writer. Because of them, I know all kinds of weird things, like how to remove bubble gum from dog fur (peanut butter). In fact, it was while I was addressing envelopes during a boring stint as a receptionist that a name caught my eye: Olivia Kidney. What a great name, I thought! I jotted it down in my journal. Years later, while thumbing through my old journals, I spotted the name and decided it was perfect for the twelve-year-old heroine of my first children's book.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Brilliant Little Book, November 13, 2010

By 

Pam Tee "Busy Mom" - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Kneebone Boy (Hardcover)

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"The Kneebone Boy" has gotten all sorts of **starred** praise and it well deserves it in my opinion. It's a book that manages to be whimsical and magical, and yet realistic and emotionally moving as well. It's one of my favorite books for the year. Up there with The Last Summer Of The Death Warriors. (And if you haven't read this other book, get to it. It's a marvelous YA read.)

Ellen Potter's writing is thoroughly British and very witty. The kids are quirky but lovable, and their discussions with each other are intelligent and filled with filial warmth. (I'm perfectly bored with your usual dysfunctional family at this point, so this was salve for the soul.)

Their story is a two pronged Gothic thriller. One fork being what exactly happened to their mother-- who suddenly disappeared one night; the other being who is the mysterious Kneebone Boy in the mansion they come to live near.

I'd write more but I think the less said the better. This is a book to just pick up without much foreknowledge, so you can be swept away trying to figure out what the heck is going on.

Great read. Great fun. Suitable for Middle-graders and YA and even older folk.

Pam T~

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Unusual Hardscrabble Kids, August 7, 2010

By 

K. Coombs (Utah, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Kneebone Boy (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

This book feels like Coraline meets The Penderwicks. Maybe with a little Lemony Snickett thrown in for good measure. The Kneebone Boy is dark and wry and clever and convoluted--which is pretty much what its three main characters, two brothers and a sister, are like.

Otto hasn't spoken in years; he communicates with an invented sign language that only his siblings understand. Otto always wears a black scarf that his missing mother left him. Lucia (pronounced the Italian way!) uses her imagination to get them in trouble, though the boys seem capable of finding trouble without her help. And Max knows so many things that he gets on people's nerves just a tiny bit even though he isn't actually a show-off. The author cheerily makes all three kids good-looking, but then, they are still social pariahs because they are just plain weird, plus there are some creepy rumors floating around about what happened to their mother.

As for their father, every so often he goes on trips to paint portraits of eccentric deposed royals, leaving his children with an awful woman who makes Max squeeze the oily cyst on her neck. But this time, they are going to stay with their aunt in London. Only--she isn't there. Instead of going back to Little Tunks, the three kids stay in the city. They soon have a scary run-in with a Londoner and decide to make their way to a seaside village in search of their great-aunt, who turns out to be a colorful young woman renting a folly that's a replica of Kneebone Castle for the summer. The folly is only accessible by aerial bicycle. (How else would you cross the moat?)

Which only begins to hint at the over-the-top details in this book, not to mention the shivery gothic mysteries. The biggest one is what happened to the kids' mother. Why did she leave, and where is she now?

The Kneebone Boy simply oozes atmosphere. In fact, I was shocked to discover that the book is not a paranormal or a fantasy, after all, although some of the elements are pretty outrageous. Frankly, The Kneebone Boy seems to be crying out for some magical murk. Well, I suppose there is one little bit, but the author tosses it in and basically announces, "Here, I'll bet you want a ghost."

Then, after a good many twists and turns, a veritable funhouse experience, the ending feels a little anti-climactic because, well, All Is Explained. And this is the kind of book where you kind of wish it weren't.

Yet Potter has created three marvelous characters, and her style alone is worth the ride. (This American author does British quirk better than most Brits, up to and including mocking Americans and their bizarre love of peanut butter and jelly.) Besides, you've gotta love the surreal little version of the real world she has concocted. Hmm. Maybe The Kneebone Boy is magical realism. Or something close to it. In any case, I hope the author writes another book about the unusual Hardscrabble siblings!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great adventure/mystery, with an ending you'd never predict!, September 26, 2010

By 

Lawral Wornek (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Kneebone Boy (Hardcover)

This book is not a fantasy; there is no magic. Weird things happen and you think that they MUST be magical/paranormal/fantastical, but there is a rational explanation for all of it. Weird creaky (not squeaky) rats that run on the same path all the time? Taxidermy-ed miniature zebras? A hole in the floor that goes forever? A cat with five legs? All explained. Well, not the cat, but he's the most believable bit to begin with. Still, this is certainly not realistic fiction. It is precocious-kids-left-on-their-own fiction, or rich-people-are-crazy fiction. Lemony-Snicket-type fiction. Let's just call it unrealistic fiction, shall we?

Even though they live with their father, the three Hardscrabble children are pretty used to fending for themselves. Since their mother mysteriously disappeared (and both Otto and their father were suspected of killing her and burying her in the garden), their father has been sad. He's also been taking more portrait clients; former royals who have been kicked off their thrones and who don't often pay their bills. Still, the Hardscrabbles manage.

Adventure upon adventure, the kids all end up in Snoring by the Sea, a small town outside of London, where their secret great-aunt Haddie is staying. They meet a taxidermist who could easily be mistaken for a Viking invasion reenactor, take up lodgings in a castle folly with Haddie, suffer through some ghastly American food (even though Haddie never gets her hands on the "fluff" to make fluff-r-nutters), and hear the local legend of The Kneebone Boy. The local aristocracy, the Kneebones, sent all of their children to grow up in the castle folly, back in the day. That way they adults could do adult things and the kids could do whatever their hearts desired. It also kept the Kneebone children from the oldest child of each generation, the Kneebone Boy, born half-human half-animal. The Kneebone Boy was kept, every generation, locked in a tower in the castle. This is all just legend, of course. But there is something weird going on in the forest surrounding the castle and the castle folly. The Hardscrabbles are certain that the Kneebone Boy is real and that he has escaped, and they're determined not to let him be captured and locked away in his tower again.

Unrealistic fiction has the most awesome and memorable characters, and Otto, Lucia and Max are no exception. They are all precocious, sarcastic, and quick-witted little monsters, constantly attacking each other, but not in a mean way. They're all just too smart for their own good, or at least each is trying to prove to the other two that he or she is the most knowledgeable of group on any given subject (Max usually wins). Lucia, the middle child but still clearly the leader of the group, is used to Otto going along with her, her ideas, and her adventures, especially as she is his translator. She's also still stuck in the thinking that Max is just little. Too little to be of help, too little to be a friend the way that Lucia and Otto are friends, too little to make decisions for the group. Through their adventure, each of the Hardscrabble children gets more of a will of their own, and instead of making them grow up and grow apart, they realize that they not only need each other but truly like each other as well.

Book source: ARC picked up at ALA.