One of the unexpected topics that my kids are totally fascinated by are skeletons.  I must be honest I never found them that interesting but both of mine love examining different skeletons and seeing how they are similar and how they are different.   A while ago my daughter was searching through our book selection looking for animal skeletons to copy and I realized we did not have that many so I started looking for skeleton books and I found this one – Who Owns These Bones?

As soon as the book arrived my son was paging through it looking at the skeletons and guessing which animal they belonged to.  He loved lifting all all the flaps to discover if he had guessed the correct animal.

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My daughter liked the way it shows you animals which are similar but have distinctive differences, she liked the extra detail like how the Rhinos feet have three toes, the hippo has four and a horse basically has one.  And how the bats wings are essentially elongated phalanges with skin between them.  Details like that really impressed her.

This book is better than what I expected.  It has stunning skeleton drawings of different animals but it is more than that. I have been so impressed by the explanations included in the book and how it shows how different skeletons have adapted for different purposes.  They do not shy away from using the proper words, but they still manage to do it in a way that makes it easy reading – the paragraphs are informative without being too wordy.  I was really impressed with this as I belive in introducing the kids to the proper words so they are familiar with them but I am also aware that it can be tricky to find that balance of using the correct words but still making sure if is understandable by the kids (this book is aimed at 8+ ages)

Although the book deals with skeletons, it is informative, there is nothing spooky or scary about the way it is written.  There are no gruesome pictures.  They are accurate drawings of animals and their skeletons.

And yes both of the kids have tried copying skeletons out of the book and they have also used the skeleton drawings and ideas of how skeletons have adapted to create their own skeletons for animals that they have created.

This book is a fascinating way of  extending the kids knowledge about animals and how they adapt for different functions.  Both my kids think this book is brilliant and I agree 100%.

You can buy this book directly from Amazon – Who Owns These Bones?

Disclosure : I was looking for a skeleton book for the kids and when I found the one I liked it happened to be from a publishing house I have worked with before so I requested a copy for review purposes.  I would have happily purchased this book for my kids to use.

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