The Kneebone Boy

Ellen Potter

Sep 2010 · Sold by Feiwel & Friends

About this ebook

Life in a small town can be pretty boring when everyone avoids you like the plague. But after their father unwittingly sends them to stay with an aunt who's away on holiday, the Hardscrabble children take off on an adventure that begins in the seedy streets of London and ends in a peculiar sea village where legend has it a monstrous creature lives who is half boy and half animal. . . .

In this wickedly dark, unusual, and compelling novel, Ellen Potter masterfully tells the tale of one deliciously strange family and a secret that changes everything.

Ratings and reviews

I’ve recently read "The Kneebone Boy" by Ellen Potter, a fiction novel that succeeds the "Olivia Kidney" books by the same author. The book is about three odd siblings, Lucia, Otto and Max; who, under strange circumstances, go on a journey to a strange castle and discover a secret that has been hidden there for hundreds of years. Otto is the oldest of the three Hardscrabble children and the oddest as well. He wears a scarf all the time and doesn’t talk; he communicates through a sign language that only Lucia, Max and he understand. Lucia is the second oldest and is the most normal of the three. She shares everything with Otto and knows him better than anyone. Max likes to climb onto roofs and thinks “deeply and importantly” a lot. The story takes place mainly around the Kneebone Castle and the town it’s in. The events of the story take place over one week. The basic plot of the novel is that the three Hardscrabble children get sent to London from their home in Little Tunks and get stranded in the city. They go to a relative’s house and try to uncover the truth behind the mysterious castle their aunt-in-law lives next to. Throughout the course of the book the Hardscrabbles not only discover truths about the Kneebone Castle but also about their family. I think this book is more suitable for readers between 11 and 15 of either gender who enjoy fiction and light fantasy novels. Personally, I liked this book but thought that the beginning was slow and that some unneeded elements should have been omitted. This book is better suited for being read in one to three sitting, not five or six because there are many detailed events and continually stopping makes you lose track of them. Other than a few shortcomings like those mentioned, the book was good. I encourage people who like fiction novels to read “The Kneebone Boy” because it is an enjoyable read. The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter gets 3.6 stars out of 5.

:o) I love this book so much! It was introduced to me by my teacher and we did it for our lunch bunch book club! It is so mysterious and keeps you wondering hmm...... who realy is narrating it? In the end we got to meet face to face with Ellen Potter herself. I would most defiently recomend this book to anyine in 4th garde and up because it can be challanging at points. But the back blurb is what realy will get you to read it...

I read this in school when I was younger, but only because the cover of the book (mostly Otto) interested me and I HAD to read it! Love this book so much!

About the author

Ellen Potter is the author of books including Slob, Pish Posh, and Olivia Kidney. With Anne Mazer she is also the author of Spilling Ink: A Young Writer's Handbook. Potter grew up in a high-rise apartment building in New York City's Upper West Side, where she exercised her early creativity by making up stories about the neighbors she saw on the elevator. When she was 11 years old, she realized all the best books were written for people her age, and so she decided to become a children's book author. She studied creative writing at Binghamton University, and then worked many different jobs while continuing to write. She was a dog groomer, construction worker, art teacher, and waitress. She lives in upstate New York with her husband, son and a motley assortment of badly behaved animals.