- Graphic Novels
- Ages 7–12
- Fantasy
Bone 1: Out from Boneville
Book 1 of 9 in BoneView the full series
A landmark children's graphic novel that starts as funny slapstick fantasy and quietly opens into a much bigger epic. It is a brilliant bridge from comic reading into richer, long-form adventure storytelling.
- Best for7–12
- FormatGraphic
- Length144 pp
- Read aloud~1 hr10 min
The vibe
What it’s like.
Style
- Conversational
- Comedic
- Onomatopoeic
Tone
- Funny
- Adventurous
- Exciting
- Suspenseful
- Whimsical
Themes
Experience meters
What’s it about?
The story.
Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone have been run out of Boneville and lost in a vast desert, far from home and even farther from anything familiar. When the cousins become separated, Fone Bone finds his way into a strange valley filled with talking insects, possum children, a mysterious girl named Thorn, her tough grandmother and lurking rat creatures with a taste for quiche. Out from Boneville begins the Bone saga with a deceptively light touch: big cartoon expressions, funny dialogue and slapstick cousin dynamics make it immediately approachable, while the world around Fone Bone gradually reveals deeper danger, magic and mystery. Jeff Smith's clean black-line cartooning and cinematic pacing make the book readable for children but satisfying for adults too. It is an ideal entry point for readers ready for a graphic novel that starts funny and becomes epic.
Fit check
Right for your child?
Where it lands by age
- 1
- 3
- 5
- 7
- 9
- 11
- 13
- Best fit · 7–12
- Read aloud · 7–11
- Independent · 7–12
Prose load
Light
Visual support
Very high
Reluctant-reader friendly
Very
Read-aloud quality
Strong
Works well for
- Reading aloud
- Gift-buying
- Reluctant readers
Preview before sharing if a child is sensitive to: scary imagery, violence.
Bedtime suitability
3 / 5 · Workable
Sensitive-child
3 / 5 · Mostly fine
Graphic intensity
3 / 5 · Some
Best for
- Fantasy graphic novels
- Comic to epic bridge
- Reluctant readers
- Adventure fans
- Classic graphic novels
Avoid if
- Prefers realistic stories
- Very sensitive readers
- Needs standalone books
Particularly good for children who are…
- Reluctant reader
- Struggling with reading
- Making friends
In the classroom
How it works in school.
The beloved Bone fantasy-comic saga — a reluctant-reader classic and a classroom-library cornerstone.
A book children love that happens to support school — never a stand-in for the texts a class is taught with. Reviewed for the classroom · June 2026.
Why it lands
Why they love it.
Why kids love it
The specific delight is how small it all starts — three cousins lost in a desert, a silly valley, talking bugs, a quiche-stealing rat-creature — and how slowly the book lets a reader feel the world expanding beneath the comedy. By volume nine it's full Tolkien. By volume one it's already promising more than it shows.
- Adventure and freedom
- Friendship and belonging
- Going on a quest
- Secret world
- Surviving danger
Why parents love it
The cleanest on-ramp into serious graphic-novel fantasy for an eight-to-eleven-year-old reader. Starts as Pogo-meets-cartoon-slapstick and slowly opens into proper epic over nine volumes. Multiple Eisner Awards, and the series that taught a generation of children that comics can carry a story this big. Genuinely funny throughout.
- Shared humour
- Great writing
- Beloved classic
- Conversation starter
In the series
Bone.
9 books · open the series →
About the author & illustrator
Jeff Smith.
If you liked this
Three ways out of this book.
If you liked this, try…
Lateral matches. Same shelf, different texture.
Come into this from…
Easier or preparing reads — perfect lead-ins.
Where to go next…
Escalation reads — a step up in scale, silliness, or stakes.
Where you’ll find it
On these reading lists.
Buy or borrow
Pick up a copy.
- Bookshop.org ↗
- Waterstones ↗
- Amazon UK ↗
- Hive ↗
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