Doll Bones: A book report

[Introduction]

“Doll Bones is a book that will make you sleep with the lights on”, said Jeff Kinney, the author of the diary of the Wimpy Kid. Doll Bones is a creepy, terrifying book about, as it in the title, a doll. It’s quite true. Dolls are seen to be scary to many people because when we see something, we immediately try to look for realistic parts to see if it is alive, like eyes or feet. So human-like dolls are even more scary, because the brain tells that this thing is alive because it already inspected it, but we also know that it is not alive, so the mixture and the juxtaposition of that makes dolls really creepy. I decided to write a book report about this book because it was one of the books I enjoyed reading it, and would remind me of one of my favorite day-Halloween.

[General Summary]

So Doll Bones is a book with three kids. They are Poppy Bell (girl), Zachary Barlow (boy), and Alice Magnaye (girl). They met when they were all little kids, and made a game they played forever-a game in a world of fantasy, with monsters, thieves and wizards and characters they made like the Great Queen, Lady Jaye, William the Blade and so on. They have decided that the ruler of the world they are playing is the Great Queen. The great queen was a bone-china doll like a child. It is locked in a cabinet and its eyes sometimes look different. Poppy and her sister are terrified of her. But while they kept playing the game, they became middle-schoolers and teenagers. Then Zach’s father does something drastic-he throws out Zach’s toys. Zach is stressed and infuriated and decides to not tell anything about his friends. Zach suddenly became so different, and the three of their friendship began to crack. Then one day, Alice gives Zach a note. It is about something that happened with the Great Queen. But Zach did not come, because he gave up the game. But when it was night, Poppy and Alice called up Zach from his home and led to a place at midnight. Poppy took the spooky looking doll out of her backpack and told Zach all about it-at night, Poppy saw a dead girl-she was lying at the edge of her bed, her hairs tangled and her dress muddy. She told her that she was Eleanor Kerchner, and that her father was a china-manufacturer. (Not the country china) When she was dead, her dad went crazy. He could not make himself to bury her, so he chopped her and made her bones into the Queen doll, and he put the ashes in it, Poppy proves that by showing the ash and that they need to go to East Liverpool to her grave, and bury her, or else the ghosts says, they will be cursed for eternity. So they set off for an adventure, drunk man on the bus keep bothering them, making camp at night in the forest, stealing a boat and riding through the river, diving into the cold water to get back the doll when Alice explodes and throws the doll away, and get caught sleeping in the library, runs away, and finally after days and days of walking, they could bury the doll. (There were also many chaos and fights between them and especially Poppy and Alice.)

[Spooky things within the novel]

1. When they made camp in the night, and when everyone went asleep quickly, (even Poppy because she was on watch but fell asleep) and after some time, Zach dreamed about the doll, which is Eleanor Kerchner. Then when he wakes up, the creepy doll is right above him peering down at him. He freaks out, because Poppy was holding the doll but how could the doll have come here? Also their sleeping bag exploded, the peanut butter smothered, crackers crunched, and carrots tossed around. Who did this stuff?

2. The doll disappeared in the library. When they started to find the doll before the librarian came back, Zach went to the basement and sneaked into the girl’s bathroom. But there, he found the doll, in the trash can looking up at him, then when he saw himself in the mirror, it wasn’t his own face-it was like he was the white china doll too! He had a white face and black eyes. He screamed.

3. When they went to the donut shop, the donut man said that “Your blonde friend sounds pretty hungry.” to them. In fact, no one was blond, Poppy was red, Alice was brownish and black, and Zach was black. But the doll was blonde. And then he set a donut in front of the doll. Then Zach realized-the doll’s cheeks looked a little rosier, as if she was eating something that wasn’t donuts..

4. The same thing happened within the diner and the bus. The drunk man in the bus, Tinshoe Jones said, “I am not going to talk to the blonde because I don’t like the way she was looking at me.” Was he seeing the doll as a real blonde person, and she was glaring at him? In the diner, the lady said, “Table for Four?” but there were three kids. Was she seeing the doll as a blonde girl that the three of them couldn’t see?

[Moral of the story]

The moral of the story is about growing up and facing the changes. While all of them grow up, they have many difficulties to face, like about still playing their game with toys and knowing that many stories were lies by parents and people, but they kind of managed to not give up and face them. The second moral is teamwork and friendship. If it weren’t for their friendship and bravery, they could not have left their home at midnight, swimming in the cold river. If Alice went back, maybe they could not have buried the doll and just failed. If none of them comforted Poppy when she doubted herself, maybe they could not have buried the doll. (A happy ending, Zach hears a distant sound of a girl laughing after they bury her and the doll, which must be Eleanor)

[Secrets]

-Eleanor has the major theory the three of them came with: Her mean aunt made Eleanor fall off the roof, and his father did not murder her, but made her into her doll, which me proclaims that he gave him another life or so.

-Alice has a crush on Zach, she would kind of like Zach to go with the movies with her.