Author(s): Tony Johnston

Teen (Ages 15+)

A beautifully written tale of childhood friendship in America's deep south, in the tradition of To Kill A Mocking Bird David is nine. He knows all the bones. When he was born, his father Dr Franklin Church hung a skeleton in his room and taught him the names, bone by bone by bone. David is going to be a doctor like his father. David's best friend is Malcolm. Malcolm knows the bone names too. But this is Tennessee in the 1950s-the deep south of America, and a time of brutal racial intolerance and tension. It's the territory of the Ku Klux Klan. And Malcolm is black. Drawing on her own childhood memories, Tony Johnston brings us a universal story of the innocent purity of friendship amidst the bone-chilling horror of racism.