3 out of 5

While I thirsted for anything Bone related after reading the series, ‘Rose’ doesn’t really feel like a story that needed to be told, resulting in a very pretty tale that, yes, fills in some story gaps but to no great result – it doesn’t enrich the overall Bone experience.  Nor does it detract from it, though…

The short tale (the average length of one of the Scholatic Bone books – about 130 pgs) covers Rose Harvestar’s – Gran’ma Ben – and sister Briar’s travels to Old Man Cave as teen girls for their first meeting with Lieutenant Down, the Veni Yan disciples, and the Red Dragon, as the final stage of training their dreaming eyes to open.  The wiles and wileyness of young girls sets the stage for the locust’s first appearance and attempts to give us a better understanding of how the two sisters turned against one another.  Some of the revelations about Gran’ma are interesting – her ability to talk to animals, seeing the development of her tough side – and it’s not that the plot details are unimportant in the scheme of things, but this is simply adding illustration to details that were already weeded into the Bone story itself.  Though perhaps illustration was the cause – giving Smith’s pencils a break in favor of Charles Vess.  And it’s a good cause.  If Neil Gaiman’s work is a bit too fluttery for you (and it is for me), then you’ve probably skipped his collaborations with Vess.  His stately pencils – and matching lettering style – are straight out of fairly tales, the somewhat faded color palette included – and though Smith shifts his dialogue to more ye olden style speak to match the tone, his humor and creativity (the dragon Balsaad’s personality and abilities… nuff said) are the perfect balance to the look the give the story a grounded feel.

The overall pacing is a bit off, sort of clumsily introducing the shift from sister rivalry to ‘damn that bitch is evil’, but since we know where it’s going, the quick elevation of events can be excused.

Bone doesn’t have to be read to enjoy this, and readers of Fables can probably dig on the whole fantasy feel of it.  Bone readers, like me, will have snatched this up as related material, but it really is extra, well written and lovably drawn but totes not a required addition to the story.