Name: Skeleton Man
ISBN: 9780064408882

Joseph Bruchac

Ever since the morning Molly woke up to find that her parents hadvanished, her life has become filled with terrible questions. Where have her parents gone? Who is this spooky old man who's taken her to live with him, claiming to be her great-uncle? Why does he never eat, and why does he lock her in her room at night? What are her dreams of the Skeleton Man trying to tell her? There's one thing Molly does know. She needs to find some answers before it's too late.

Skeleton Man

After her parents disappear and she is turned over to the care of a strange "great-uncle," Molly must rely on her dreams about an old Mohawk story for her safety and maybe even for her life.

Jeni Enjaian

This was another book that I had no idea that I had already read before searching for the book on goodreads to add a review. I think a lot of the books that I read in 2009 made very little impact on my memory, most likely because I read them too quickly.
This book was an attempt at instituting some classroom order in one of my most difficult classes during "flex time" (extra time that we have before lunch and outside of regular class time). 
Most of the students were highly engaged in the story despite the slightly sub par narrator. (I will always compare every audiobook narrator to Jim Dale and with the exception of a rare few like Rob Inglis, all will fall short.)
This book is not one that I would likely have been interested in but may have been one that I would have finished because it was on a list of required reading.
Bruchac creates a compelling narrative that kept the kids engaged even with the breaks in the narrative from day to day.
As a teacher, I appreciate that. As a reader, I was not engaged but that was more a matter of taste than author's skill.
I definitely would recommend this book as an option for middle school readers or middle school ELA teachers to offer as a choice for their students.

Lynn Braden

Molly's father tells her a spooky story about a skeleton man that ate all of his own flesh and then went after his relatives. Molly knows it's just a scary story until her parents disappear and she is placed in the custody of a strange man who says he is her uncle and is mostly skin and bones.

Skeleton Man is a very short, scary story built on Native American legends and the fears of children. We don't get any real information about the uncle or who he really is. His motives are sketchy at best and none of the characters are very well developed. The purpose of the book is to be scary and it does do that very well. Overall, Skeleton Man is more of a short story than a book, but it does create fear in the reader.