The Bone Garden

June 1, 2019
A girl conjured from bone dust longs to be real--and loved--in Kassner's debut. Eleven-year-old Irréelle doesn't believe in ghosts, though she spends her days beneath a cemetery--the titular "bone garden"--extracting bone dust for her sinister creator, Miss Vesper. But she is haunted. Miss Vesper constantly criticizes Irréelle's "mismatched" and "muddled" white hair, multicolored eyes, and crooked limbs; worse, she reminds Irréelle that she's "a figment of [her] imagination, tethered here by the finest thread." Terrified of being wished away, Irréelle vows to complete an "impossible" task in hopes that Miss Vesper will make her "normal" and "fully real. Maybe then she would be worthy of love." As Irréelle and her somewhat one-dimensional fellow creations--wisecracking Guy, fearless Lass, and the mischievous, disembodied Hand--search for "the unmarked grave that is very clearly marked" while dodging Miss Vesper's wrath, Irréelle learns that being "real" takes many forms. Many predicaments resolve with remarkable ease, diminishing suspense. However, the author perceptively depicts the confusion of living with an emotionally abusive caregiver; Irréelle's love for Miss Vesper despite her cruelty is painfully realistic. The ending feels a bit too tidy, but Irréelle's newfound self-confidence is rewarding. Saunders' dark, scratchy line drawings accent the lyrical prose. Miss Vesper and Irréelle present white; the Hand appears dark-skinned, Guy is racially ambiguous, and Lass appears to be a person of color. A mildly creepy, ultimately comforting take on familiar themes of love, family, and identity. (Fantasy. 8-12)

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June 17, 2019
Formed from bone dust and imagination, Irréelle, 11, works in the tunnels beneath a cemetery for her cold creator, Miss Arden Vesper, to whom she is connected by a magical thread. All Irréelle wants is to be loved and cared for, but Miss Vesper refuses to mend Irréelle’s misaligned limbs, using bone dust, which Irréelle extracts from corpses, for her own longevity and “dark creations.” After Miss Vesper informs her that she can be easily dispatched, Irréelle escapes to the tunnels, where she finds and rescues her predecessor, Guy. Guided by disembodied Hand, they begin to unearth the truth about Miss Vesper and her quest for “an unmarked grave that is very clearly marked.” Up against dirt bats, the graveyard’s sadistic night watchman, and Miss Vesper herself, Irréelle, Guy, Hand, and Irréelle’s replacement, Lass, must disentangle the secrets of bone magic before Miss Vesper unmakes them all. Kassner’s uneven debut seems to be alluding to larger questions about abuse, ability, and self-acceptance, but these themes are left undeveloped, raising troubling, even disempowering messages. Still, the eldritch atmosphere and compelling mystery will likely draw fans of middle grade horror, and Saunders’s spooky black-and-white sketches bolster the tale. Ages 10–14. Agent: Suzie Townsend, New Leaf Literary.