Setting and storytelling are the focus of this historical, paranormal mystery set in southern Appalachia during WWII. Bone has just come into her Gift, a power passed down from her deceased mother's side of the family. She can see memories attached to objects she touches, and she has reason to believe there is more to her mother's death of influenza than she has been told. When a woman from President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration comes to gather stories from Bone's small coal-mining town, Bone inserts herself into the process as a way to gather more information about her own past. This well-researched novel has a strong sense of place, much stronger than the plot, which takes some time to get chugging. The narrative includes stories from both Appalachian and Cherokee traditions (sources cited in the back matter), and offers complex perspectives on child labor, duty, and the effects illness and war had on rural communities. This trilogy starter is recommended for classroom teachers trying to bring a time and place to life.

When twelve-year-old Bone, a spunky storyteller, picks up an object, she experiences its history and relives scenes from its owner's past. As Bone explores this "Gift," she searches for stories--and the truth--about her mother's death. Set in Appalachia coal-mining country during WWII, Smibert's blend of history, folklore, mystery, and fantasy is a riveting start to a planned series.

A 12-year-old Appalachian girl tries to come to terms with her supernatural gift at the start of World War II.Sometimes, when Laurel Grace—usually known as Bone—touches an object, she can get a glimpse of its past. When she picked up her friend Will's father's dinner bucket, she was flooded with memories of his death in a mining accident a decade before. When she wears her mother's yellow sweater she feels Mama's loving touch, smells her lavender scent. Mama died of influenza six years ago, and now, with Daddy drafted into the Army, she's being made to live with Mama's sister, Aunt Mattie, who sees the family gifts as curses and wants to pray Bone's out of her. But why? Smibert surrounds Bone with a loving, complicated extended family and gives her plot just enough heft for both realism and reader engagement. The coal-field setting is particularly well-drawn, with details such as children at play sliding down a slag heap instead of a snowdrift. Feed-sack dresses aren't a cliché here, and neither is Smibert's language, which feels real and down-to-earth, like her characters. "The morning wore on like a sermon on a hot day." Only the ending, which sets up a three-volume series, lacks punch, but that won't keep readers from wanting to revisit. An intriguing blend of history and magic. (Historical/paranormal fiction. 8-14)