Billy Bones: Tales from the Secrets Closet

by Christopher Lincoln, Avi Ofer (Illustrator)

Overview

Deep within High Manners Manor, Billy and his skeleton parents live in the Secrets Closet, where they're in charge of filing all the secrets and lies of the unscrupulous Biglum family. Then Billy meets Millicent, Sir Biglum's niece who has been recently orphaned. Together, Billy and Millicent encounter ghosts and other uncanny creatures as they explore each other's worlds and uncover the biggest secret of all: Billy was once a Biglum.

Chris Lincoln has created a richly imaginative, highly original world. In this spooky adventure in the tradition of filmmaker Tim Burton, friendships bloom, betrayals linger, schemes entangle - and heroism appears in the most unexpected places.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316087902
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	07/01/2010
Series:	Billy Bones
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Lexile:	790L (what's this?)
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Christopher Lincoln graduated from the School of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University and spent nearly a decade working as an animator. He credits animation for teaching him how to write, because an animator must learn how to inhabit a character's body and move him in a world of his own. This is his first book for young readers. His Website is www.chrislincoln.org.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 4-6

Full of creatively descriptive language, this delightful story moves along rapidly, bordering on but never crossing into campy. Billy Bones lives with his parents, the proverbial skeletons in the closet, who have the job of guarding the secrets and lies of the residents of High Manners Manor, including the current household head, the nefarious Sir Barkley Braggety Biglum VI. His recently orphaned niece, Millicent, now lives at the mansion, where she is relegated to the attic. Naturally curious, she often sneaks out of her room to explore. She comes upon her grandmother, Dame Biglum, who has been shut away upstairs, and the Bones's secrets closet. After recovering from their initial fright, the youngsters become friends, and they work together to uncover secrets about the Biglum family history, Billy's puzzling origins, and Barkley's latest plot. Meanwhile, in the Afterlife, investigations about the Boneses' own family mysteries are underway. All works out in the end as secrets are revealed, goodness and truth win out over lies and deception, and villains get their just deserts. Characters are aptly named-the unlikable housekeeper, Miss Primly; the collector of souls, Uncle Grim; and the lawyers Hack, Whack, and Plunder. Cartoon sketches add to the drama and humor. Billy Bones is a fun read.-Jennifer D. Montgomery, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green

School Library Journal

Newly orphaned Millicent Hues has a natural curiosity that suits her new home, High Manners Manor. Sadly, her explorations are curtailed by her greedy uncle, Sir Biglum, and his housekeeper, Miss Primly. High Manners is a house good at keeping its secrets, but the last thing Millicent would have expected was to stumble upon a closet with honest-to-goodness skeletons in it. The Bones family members are the official secret-keepers of the household, but young Billy Bones, tired of his closet home, shares Millicent's desire for adventure. Sir Biglum's own secrets are intricately tied to Billy's past, and it's up to these intrepid new friends to uncover the truth behind the lies and to defeat the villains who wish to destroy them. Lincoln's book has an easygoing charm that never demands much of its readers. Despite multiple death scenes (most related in flashback), it's a light read with a gentle tone. Not a particularly new or original piece of work, but one that's sure to amuse those kids with a love of the mildly macabre. (Horror. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews