Bone: Out from Boneville Book Essay Example

I believe that Journey and self-discovery are something that everyone goes through in one way or another. I believe what the theme means is that everyone will come across an unfamiliar situation physically or mentally where we explore different aspects of our lives where these new situations can be called journeys. Sometimes we are placed in events that are outside our comfort zone which allows us to grow and discover different parts of who we are and what is around us. There are a majority of examples of the theme in Bone: Out From Boneville by Jeff Smith. The person I will focus on is Fone Bone.

In the book, Fone Bone and his cousins (Phoney and Smily Bone) escape from their town called Boneville. The escape from the town ends up leading them into a lonely desert right next to a cliff. As they are walking, Fone Bone accidentally falls from the cliff due to a swarm of locusts. Fortunately enough, He climbs up the cliff but finds himself to be lost with his two cousins nowhere to be found. When he notices that he is all alone he says, “ Where is everybody? Wheres th’ locusts?! No way! I climbed up the wrong side! Phony! Help!! You gotta save me!!!” (Smith 10). Here we can see that Fone Bone is all alone and even though he cried for help, no one replied. This comes to shows that Fone Bone has a long journey ahead if he wants to find his cousins.

After Fone Bone finds himself to be all alone, he climbs up a mountain while it is extremely hot outside. He feels as if he is going to die due to the hot weather and him being very dehydrated. He convinces himself to keep going no matter what happens. As he is walking he says, “Oh well... I’ll find those guys sooner or later...If I don’t die of thirst...until then, I just gotta keep movin’! Keep…” (Smith 17).  This tells us that Fone Bone is determined to continue his journey to look for Phoney and Smiley Bone despite what is going on with the weather.

As Fone Bone is walking through the forest, he starts to feel hopeless about trying to find his cousins. During the time that he is in the woods, it is the fall season and a bug named Ted warns him about the winter arriving soon. After Fone Bone receives this information, he walks some more through the forest and starts saying to himself, “What am I gonna do? What if I can’t find my cousins before it snows? We could be trapped here for th’ whole winter!” (Smith 23) What is happening is that Fone Bone is questioning how his mission is going to turn out. We can see here that this is an example of self-discovery because Fone Bone has to discover where his cousins are before the winter season kicks in and makes everything difficult.

In conclusion, Fone Bone is a lost person who has gone through a long journey and has discovered different places that he has never been before. He is on a mission to discover where his cousins are but faces unexpected trials along the way. Fone Bone shows the readers that no matter what you are going through, at some point you will discover what you are looking for and even discover what you are not looking for while also going on a journey that has never been taken. The author's message for all of us is that we will never reach a point in our lives where we don’t go through at least one peculiar situation. All of us will face trials that will teach us lessons in the long run.    

Work Cited

Smith, Jeff. Bone: Out from Boneville. Graphix, 1995.