You may recognize author E.L. Konigsburg’s name from From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, but Silent to the Bone is a completely different kind of book.
Title: Silent to the Bone
Author: E.L. Konigsburg
Genre: contemporary realistic fiction
Age group: YA
Summary: Thirteen-year-old Connor tries to help his friend Branwell regain his powers of speech. Branwell’s silence began the night his baby sister went into a coma. The nanny believes Branwell must have dropped his baby sister, but Connor doesn’t believe his best friend would’ve done that. After finding a way to communicate with Branwell through pictures, Connor begins to investigate what really happened that night.
Although I don’t want to give anything away, I think parents should know that there’s sexual activity involved in this book, and they shouldn’t hand it to a fourth grader who’s just read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, thinking that if the kid liked the one book that they’d like the other. This book is definitely for an older audience.
The story is well-told, and I enjoyed how Connor uses his smarts to figure out what happened that night, but I’d rather read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
One Response to Monday Book Review: Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg