Joseph bruchac skeleton man

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Sign up Log in. Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. Molly somehow knows that her parents are out there somewhere and they will come back. When social services comes, Molly tries to tell them that, but they aren't convinced and they place her with a great-uncle, who she has never met or heard of before. Molly doesn't want to go and live with him, but they give her no choice.

There is something strange about him, he is very bony and to Molly, doesn't look human. Nevertheless, she has to live with him. The house isn't really creepy, it's just this man who is supposed to be her uncle. While living there she tries to avoid him as much as possible by staying in her room. Every day he leaves her food to eat, but she doesn't eat it because Molly thinks he has drugged it, and every night he locks Molly in her bedroom.

Molly has to use her intuition and listen to her dreams. This book is actually based on an old native american legend, which interested me greatly since I am part native america. I wouldn't say the book scared me, I don't get scared very easily though. It was just creepy, I guess you could say and at some parts I just went "Wow! I don't know if this book will scare anyone, but even if it doesn't you still want to read more and find out what happens.

Joseph bruchac skeleton man

At least I did. This is a perfect read for Halloween. So this short scary tale based of a Native American legend took about two hours to read and comes with a review by R. Stine promising nightmares and thrills.. I admit to neither but will say Joseph Bruchac can tell a great story, one that makes you interested from beginning to end in what will happen..

So Molly is happy child from two Native American parents with little to no family aside of the three of them. They live happily enough with stories and legends and even scary tales of a Skeleton Man who eats people and was once tricked by a girl and a rabbit. What a perfect story to tell late at night, sitting around the fire, in the middle of the woods.

I love Molly and her fierce dedication to her beliefs, dreams, instincts. The way she didn't let adults back her down, and I really appreciate that Joseph Bruchac wrote a good relationship between parents and child and also gave Molly an adult ally. It's hard to find a book for kids in which the adults aren't all against the kids and, as a result, the kids are forced into being their own hero.

In this tale, Molly is proactive because she was raised with the knowledge that she is brave and capable. Not only do our Native American heroines take care of their own rescues, they often save the men, too! This is a fun read, a great mystery for middle grade or YA readers. Bruchac is a Nulhegan Abenaki citizen, and an incredible storyteller. Skeleton Man is based on Native American Legend.

The main character, Molly, and her father have Mohawk heritage. Her favorite of her dad's stories is about the Skeleton Man. When her parents disappear, she moves in with an uncle who she doesn't know. She starts to think that she is living the Skeleton Man story. This is a fast-paced story, easily read, and hard to put down. I would definitely recommend to young reader who loves mysteries and action.

My 5th grade teacher read this aloud to us and I remember that it scared me so much! I recently had it as a part of my Spooky, Scary, Skeletons display at work and decided that I wanted to read it for myself. It wasn't nearly as creepy as I remember it being but it wasn't bad! I definitely see how 5th grade me was terrified! When I was a kid, I read this for a book discussion and it was easily one of the scariest things I had ever read!

I was so freaked out by this story. I came across it again, about twenty years later, and decided to give it another go. My thoughts have changed a little. While I still found this book scary, it was scary in different ways. For starters, as a kid, the whole "cannibalistic uncle" was what really stuck in my mind. And even twenty years later, the line "eat and grow fat" was basically the big takeaway of the book.

Reading it as an adult, however, I'm struck by how terrifying it was that this man was able to do what he did, and most importantly, that they didn't know why he did it. The book basically ends with "We think he's dead, but you never can be sure. Oh, and by the way, we don't know why he did all this. I was a little mad at the lack of an ending, until I realized that there's a sequel.

So, I requested that from the library as well, and am just waiting for it to come my way. After all these years, I'm excited to finally get the conclusion that I never knew existed. Thank God for Goodreads, or I still would never know! Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book.

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At the end of the day, they leave their tools behind. Acting on a hunch, Molly takes some of the tools and hides them in her backpack. She also finds banking records. A plan to rescue her family unfolds. That night, after her great-uncle locks her in her room, she removes the bedroom door from its hinges with the tools she took from the school workmen.

She races to find her parents in the tool shed. Her mother and father are in a hole in the ground at the back of the shed, and their prison resembles the cave from her dream. She uses bolt cutters from her backpack to cut through the grate covering the hole. When her father tells her to run away quickly, she tells him to meet her at a waterfall known to them both.

Events happen just as they did in her dream. A rabbit runs in front of her and leads the way as her great-uncle, now fully revealed as Skeleton Man, chases her. She finds the strength to dislodge the log bridge just has she did in the dream, and Skeleton Man plummets to his death in the waterfall and the gorge far below, although no one ever finds his body.

By this time, Molly parents have freed themselves, and they meet her at the waterfall. Later, while reflecting on the experience, Molly knows that she will never understand why it happened. She is just grateful that her family is restored, and she is happy to be with them. That is all that matters. View Collection. Indigenous People's Literature.

Study Guide. Skeleton Man. Joseph Bruchac. Fiction Novel Middle Grade Published in