From the Bookshelf of Mock Newbery 2026…

The Kneebone Boy

Ellen Potter

Start date: November 1, 2010

Finish date: November 30, 2010

Discussion: Book of the Month 2011

Why we're reading this: The results are in and Kneebone Boy was clearly the winner.
[close] The results are in and Kneebone Boy was clearly the winner.

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Book of the Month 2011

November Read - The Kneebone Boy
By Kristen · 15 posts · 68 views

last updated Mar 26, 2011 01:49PM

December Read - The Dreamer
By Kristen · 9 posts · 51 views

last updated Dec 30, 2010 09:21PM

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What Members Thought

Dec 30, 2010 Hilary rated it really liked it

Shelves: grades-5-6, grades-7-8, adventure, contemporary-fiction, mystery

The Hardscrabble children - Saucy Lucia, mysterious and silent Otto and know-it-all Max - have been without a mother for so long that they hardly remember her. Their father has only told them that she is gone. Rumors float around their small town about what happened to her. Perhaps their father killed her, or maybe Otto strangled her with the scarf he always wears around his neck. Other than that, their lives are unbearably normal. That is all about to change. When their father leaves for anothe The Hardscrabble children - Saucy Lucia, mysterious and silent Otto and know-it-all Max - have been without a mother for so long that they hardly remember her. Their father has only told them that she is gone. Rumors float around their small town about what happened to her. Perhaps their father killed her, or maybe Otto strangled her with the scarf he always wears around his neck. Other than that, their lives are unbearably normal. That is all about to change. When their father leaves for another of his trips (he travels the globe painting pictures of dethroned royalty), they are sent to London to stay with an Aunt. When they arrive and she isn't there they decide to do the unexpected and travel to the town of Snoring-By-The-Sea where they believe their great Aunt Haddie lives. When they get there they find out great Aunt Haddie isn't what they expected and that she lives in a castle folly - a small castle built for the children of the Kneebone family who occupied it for years. What follows is an adventure that they will never forget.
Not a book to be read a page or two at a time. It's best read in a few long sittings where the reader can emerge themselves entirely into the eerie feel of the story. The Hardscrabbles are a great brother-sister combo. They bicker and argue and continually tell each other that they are stupid or all other multitude of things. Potter has a poetic way with words, and the scenes leap of the page with images and sounds. She describes Kneebone castle as being lumpy, for example, or tires on a bike being soggy. The telling has an old fashioned feel to it - chapters have long titles like "In which we meet the Harscrabbles, unearth a triceratops bone and begin to like Lucia even more" that give the reader a hint of things to come, yet many details firmly lodge this story in the present. The kids wear "trainers", or say things like "throttle". Good for kids who like Roald Dahl or even to some extend Rachel Isadora (but a little edgier than the later). ...more

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Jan 07, 2011 Kimberley Little rated it it was amazing

Newbery material here! Ellen Potter is my new favorite author. I love her work.

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Jan 02, 2011 Jennifer rated it really liked it

The intriguing adventure, realistic relationship among siblings, clever asides to the reader and mystery of the narrative voice all appealed to me. The ending and explanation of Hardscrabble mother's disappearance was a bit unsettling. ...more

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Feb 17, 2011 Shazzer rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2010-middle-grade, middle-grade

I enjoyed the characters quite a bit, but the eleventh hour plot twist was too much for me to swallow. Both too neat and too messy, it strained credulity and was quite frankly too heartbreaking for the book that contained it.

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