Some Bones Before Breakfast
June 1st, 2022 by jules
Whose Bones Are Those? (Candlewick Studio, June 2022) is an Australian import, originally published in 2020, from cut paper artist Chihiro Takeuchi. And it’s an unusual and delightful sort of matching game for young readers. Here are two spreads to show you what I mean. …
Those are the two opening spreads, but readers are also asked to guess the bones of a lion, a crocodile, an elephant, flamingos, and more. Takeuchi fills the books with eye-catching solid colors and streamlined, unfussy compositions. All the animals included, as noted in a closing “Fun Facts” spread, are vertebrates, and Takeuchi mixes it up with reptiles, mammals, and birds (a penguin appears on the final spread). The “Fun Facts” spread shares some intriguing facts about each creature (“Did you know that what everyone thinks are flamingos’ knees are actually their ankles?”) and throws humans into the mix. The endpapers also feature rows of human children — with their bones, of course, on the front endpapers.
It’s a visually striking book, in which the page-turns are everything, and an entertaining guessing game for very young children, especially those first learning about the skeletal system and that, underneath all the trappings, many creatures are a heap of bones.
WHOSE BONES ARE THOSE? Copyright © 2020 by Chihiro Takeuchi. First published by Berbay Publishing (Australia) 2020. First U.S. edition 2022 published by Candlewick Studio, an imprint of Candlewick Press, Somerville, Massachusetts, by arrangement with Berbay Publishing. Illustrations reproduced by permission of Candlewick Studio.
