Reason for Reading: next in the series.

This volume is one big journey as Gran'ma Ben, Thorn and the Bone cousins travel across a barren land scattered with ghost circles to reach Atheia, the ancient city of the royal family. A brief flash to the Lord of the Locusts and occassional jumps to villagers after the previous battle give a change of pace. But for the most part we have a plot-focused, forward-moving, action-high journey in progress that is a quick, enjoyable read. It's been a good 3 months since I read the last book, so it was a delight for me to come back to this series and find these old friends as delightful as ever. Humour and adventure abound, while this is quite a dark ,and a bit scary, volume. Great stuff! Just two more books to go! (and the prequel)

With "Ghost Circles," the seventh of nine volumes, the "Bone" saga gets very, very serious. While still appropriate for all ages (there is nothing here you wouldn't let your eight-year-old read), this is hardly kiddy fare. It's dark, grim and rarely funny.
"Bone" is an epic story about three "bone creatures" and their adventures in a valley peopled with an assortment of crazy and interesting characters. Looming over it all is the menace of a great evil, revealed slowly over the course of nine volumes, intent on unleashing itself over the world. The series starts off lighthearted, but grows less so as the story unravels itself, as is evident with "Ghost Circles."

In "Ghost Circles," despair rules over all. It begins with the death of a supporting character, leads into suffering for all, and sees the main characters trudge through hopelessness before leaving the reader lingering with the hope that maybe, just maybe, a good end will come for the good guys.

Here, several story threads move ahead independent of each other, the characters separated by a great calamity in the valley. Throughout the volume, the threads appear to be drawing together - even as evil grows. When finishing this, you'll reach for the next volume right away.

Smith combines the kind of classic storytelling perfected by the likes of the legendary Carl Barks (Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge) and Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes) - pure cartooning with outrageous and expressive faces and gestures - with the epic and engaging plotting of a sweeping fairy tale. "Bone" manages to balance the two well enough to be something fans of both Donald Duck and Frodo Baggins can enjoy.

Jeff Smith's "Bone" series may be critically acclaimed, but it is also criminally overlooked. And that's too bad, because this deserves to be read.

And in the long run, it will be.

There is no doubt people will still be reading "Bone" 50 years from now. Broad and epic in scope yet personal and quaint, this is a charming story in every way that will surely outlast most other comic works on the shelf.

i'm in grade 12, and I still love to read kidish books like these, they are so interesting and funny and give that kind of adventure/romance/fantasy/family type of feeling, I think that next to Harry Potter, this is the next big thing.