Name: The Great Cow Race
ISBN: 9780439706391

Jeff Smith

Steve Hamaker

Before leaving the village of Barrelhaven, Phoney Bone risks everything on one last get-rich-quick scheme for the town's annual Great Cow Race, but as usual, Phoney's plans go disastrously awry. Tween.

The Great Cow Race

Out from Boneville

Bone

Colton Ray

Reread 11-26-17

Still just as funny and magical as when I read it back in high school and again in college. Would make a great TV show if handled correctly, but I don't trust Hollywood to do it justice. Delightfully weird and wacky tale of bone creatures, giant rats, and dragons in a fantasy world. There is also cow racing. The later entries become more epic and serious, but this one is more light-hearted and comedic. A genuine joy to read.

The adventures and misadventures of the three Bone cousins, Fone, Smiley, and Phoney.

Sarah Sammis

By Volume 3 of Bone, Eyes of the Storm, I knew I wanted to finish reading the entire series. I grabbed every volume I had read yet from my local library and proceeded to read them. Unfortunately what I didn't realize was that Volumes 5 and 9 were missing. In fact, my local library doesn't have those two volumes. So I had to put them on hold and read them out of order from the rest of the series.

In Volume 5, the Bone cousins are separated from the group. They've befriended a rat creature pup whom Smiley has named Bartleby. Along the way they meet up with Rock Jaw, an enormous mountain lion who knows the history of the valley. He's basically the ambassador Kosh of this series and his knowledge of the situation shows that the war isn't as cut and dry as the villagers think.

Rock Jaw was the first volume I read without the full color panels. While I missed the luscious colors at first I did find the black and white kept me more focused on the plot. I also finally realized that Bone cousins do in fact look like bones. It's only really obvious when they're black and white.

I wish I had been able to read this volume in order but I didn't mind going back to read it when it was finally available.

The Bone cousins struggle to reach the city of Atheia.  In their way is an ancient evil called the Locust.

Bone.

In Ghost Circles by Jeff Smith, the mountain explodes spreading ash across the valley and leaving everything in ruins. Worse yet, ghost circles have begun to appear, taking everything in them somewhere else. Thorn, the Bone cousins and Bartleby have to make their way across this desolation to Atheia, the kingdom Thorn and her grandmother fled years ago.

It seems that readers of the series split over Ghost Circles. They either love the nonstop adventure or hate it. I loved it. I especially loved the brief glimpses into the ghost circles.

The artwork depicting the destruction is fantastic. As it happens, I was reading it during the weeks that Eyjafjallajökull was erupting. I will forever connect the book and the news together.

Bone : the dragonslayer

The Dragonslayer is the fourth installment of the Bone series by Jeff Smith. By this volume I was well and truly hooked. I went through a weekend reading the remainder of the series except for volumes 5 and 9 which weren't available at my library.

Phoney Bone has hatched a new scheme, to charge protection money from the villagers. He's calling himself the Dragonslayer but as far as he's concerned, dragons aren't real. They're just a local superstition, right?

Wrong! Phoney's in over his head again and he's dragging along Smiley and Fone. Besides the dragons, there are the rat creatures, lead by the ferocious Kingdok, and the Hooded One who could be worse than either the dragons or the rat creatures.

By The Dragonslayer the series is going at full speed. The plot threads are weaving together, conflicts are brewing and it's hard to stop reading.

Eyes of the storm

Eyes of the Storm plays out the consequences of Phonicble and Smiley's scheme to rig the cow race. They are up to their eyeballs in debt to Lucas and must work at the tavern to pay it off. Turns out they're very good at running a tavern (after some initial hiccups). Meanwhile, Thorn and Fone start having scary nightmares and Grandma Ben starts making plans to protect the village.

Most of the book though takes place during a fierce rain storm. The Rat Creatures are back with a vengeance and in Doctor Who fashion there's a lot of running.

From this point on the series goes into high gear. More and more of Rose and Thorn's background will be revealed. By Eyes of the Storm I was hooked. I am currently trying to finish the series but books five and nine are hard to come by at my local library.

The Great Cow Race by Jeff Smith turns its focus from the Bone cousins showing up in the valley to Grandma Rose's strength and long history of winning the Great Cow Race. Two of the Bone cousins decide to rig the race to reap a profit.

The light-hearted tone though is a ruse to introduce plot developments that will come to a head a couple books down the line. Pay attention to the goofy rat creatures.

Mostly though, this volume is a character builder, specifically for Grandma Rose. I already liked her from the first book (Out From Boneville). Although she's played as a comedic character here, her potential as a serious and strong leader begins to come into focus.

The Bone series includes

 * Out From Boneville
 * The Great Cow Race
 * Eyes of the Storm
 * The Dragonslayer
 * Rock Jaw, Master of the Eastern Border
 * Old Man's Cave
 * Ghost Circles
 * Treasure Hunters
 * Crown of Horns

Since I've started reading and reviewing graphic novels on my blog in earnest, lots of readers and friends have told me I should read Jeff Smith's Bone series. Turns out my library in the new Y.A. reading room has the entire series.

Out From Boneville by Jeff Smith is the first volume of the Bone series. It opens with the three Bone cousins stuck in the desert, in mid argument over whatever it is that got them run out of town.

Had the story stayed in the desert with the three cousins I would have closed the book and chalked up the experience as a "did not finish." Fone, Phoney, and Smiley by themselves are derivative of typical American comics and animation. They take the stock poses; they make the stock facial expressions.

It wasn't until the three Bones get separated and Fone ends up in the forest by himself that I started to warm to the book. The turn around point came with the scene where winter falls as a giant mound of snow dropping in from the top of the page.

What finally converted me from mildly enjoying to loving the book though were the secondary characters: the rat beasts, Thorn and her grandmother, Rose. If I had to pick a favorite character it would be Rose. She's like a female Popeye.

Out from Boneville is mostly an introduction of characters and a hinting of plot arcs. It's a rough start to a series but it ends on a strong enough note that I went back to get the next three volumes in the series to read.

decided to return to a childhood favorite now that I’m working at the library, I used to be a huge graphic novel lover and bone was one of my favorite series. move over lord of the rings this is the adventure fantasy that lives in my heart. love the drawing so expressive with such great characters and i love the way the text bubbles are written so readable and fun!! cant wait to devour the rest of this series

cedar winslow

Ryan LaFerney

jeff Smith sets up this series in a similar manner to the Lord of the Rings trilogy: a dark past, a smoldering evil, a little hero and a WHOLE LOT OF HUMOR. It's a fun and enjoyable read.

Robert S.

Now, I certainly had heard the reviews of Bone. Funny fantasy book by Jeff Smith, heavily influenced by Pogo. I wouldn't say that I was dubious, because obviously Jeff Smith is a talented individual. But, for some reason I never rushed out to read it. I thought I'd like it, but...

I was totally surprised how much I loved this book. Just totally complete and well done throughout the book. The natural traits of the characters just flows through the book.

And even though the book is very kid-friendly, it's not as if it is cleaned up for kid's protection. 

Bone is definitely a trade series that I am actively collecting.

Barry Hess

I began reading Bone in the late 90's. What a sad fact that I didn't finish the series until 2012. A wonderful ride through a world of humor, serious fantasy and imagination. All the better that I can share it with my children.

Laura Yaneth Martinez

it is a super funny book for all ages.IT is about three cousins which lead up in a new place they never heard of. So they get help from a girl named Thorn but that is not the end.

Three modern cartoon cousins get lost in a pre-technological valley, spending a year there making new friends and out-running dangerous enemies, in a compilation of the creator's Bone series all in one binding. Original.

Nat Welch

Simon Elliott Stegall

What if Calvin and Hobbes met Lord of the Rings? You'd get Bone. Three goofy-looking "Bones" (creatures that look like a cross between Bilbo Baggins and Mickey Mouse) get caught up in large scale fantasy adventures in which they fight monsters, befriend dragons, save princesses (and get saved by princesses) and bake quiches. A first-rate fantasy adventure and comedy. Highly recommended if you can get a hold of all nine volumes (I was lucky enough to stumble across this gigantic collection).

Erin Pitstra

Reading this brings back so many memories of me and my sister hiding in the back corner of the library, where the graphic novels and stuff were kept, and no one ever went back there, so that we could eat candy and read without getting caught :p

André Nóbrega

I started reading Bone knowing absolutely nothing about it. I didn't know Jeff Smith, I knew only that Bone was a giant black and white graphic novel and that a friend of mine loves it. The story starts with three odd characters that through a series of events and coincidences get involved in an epic war (which does remind me of Lord of the Rings). You know nothing about any of them, there is no introduction telling you who the characters are and it becomes very nice to get to know them and understand them with the parts of each one's past that you find out in small conversations now and then. As the story goes and you get past half of the pages you have to force yourself to close the book and sleep to be able to work the next day.
Both the illustrations and the dialogues are great, it made me wish I could get a story going like Jeff Smith did with Bone. This novel has it all, fun, storyline, it's own mythology, more fun, cool characters going through life changing situations and corny love poems. 
I still can't decide if I should give it 4 or 5 stars. I only didn't feel the blast of emotions that my 5 stars books usually give me near the end, or after it. But there is nothing for me to point out as negative in this book. If you like comics and you like fantasy, be sure not to miss Bone.

Lindsay Cronk

I would like a baby rat creature for a pet, please.

kari <33

Victoria 

Danielle McHale

Dima Sidorov

lilgramps

The adventure starts when cousins Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone are run out of Boneville and later get separated and lost in the wilderness, meeting monsters and making friends as they attempt to return home.

Old Man's Cave

Kiley

Smith Jeff

After being run out of Boneville, the three Bone cousins, Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone are separated and lost in a vast uncharted desert. One by one they find their way into a deep forested valley filled with wonderful and terrifying creatures. It will be the longest -- but funniest -- year of their lives.