Come Home Bone by Elizabeth Bonello and Illustrated by Swapan Debnath

This is a children’s book about a little girl who comes home to find that her dog has made a mess in her room looking for his bone. She hurries to clean up the mess before her mother arrives while also trying to figure out what the dog is looking for. The book is written in rhyme. By content it appears to be written for young children, but by word count and language it seems more appropriate for older kids. I let both my 4 year old and 7 year old read it and neither were too excited about it. The 4 year old liked that there was a girl and a dog in the story, but lines like “An archeologist would be proud of your dig,” and “I can see that you’ve given it that old college try,” threw her off. The 7 year old thought the story was too baby for him. And I especially didn’t like the line “My mother is now approaching my room, she’ll arrive as quickly as a witch on a broom.” I understand it was probably used for the sake or rhyming, but comparing her mother to a witch made absolutely no sense to the rest of the story.

I also received a DVD with this book about teaching manners to children. Although the DVD had lots of great information and was clearly presented, the format was terribly boring for watching at home. It would be great for use as a review or game style activity in the classroom.

2 stars

I received a copy of this book for the purpose of review.