Doll Bones Themes

Zach, Alice, and Poppy live in an unstable world where adults often go missing, and they've each suffered a lot of loss in their young lives. Zach was abandoned by his dad, who left his family for...

In a world with so many absent adults, Zach, Alice, and Poppy rely on one another for companionship and comfort. But their friendships are tested over the course of Doll Bones. For one, during thei...

At age twelve, Zach is walking the line between boyhood and the realm of manly men. He feels a lot of pressure from his father to be a certain kind of guy in Doll Bones. See, his pops doesn't appro...

In Doll Bones, Zach, Alice, and Poppy see dead people. Or Zach and Poppy do in the dreams they have about Eleanor Kerchner. Whether or not Eleanor is really a ghost, though, we know she's a real gi...

In many ways, Doll Bones is a ghost story, and the tension of whether or not ghosts are real helps drive the plot. For every strange and spooky thing that happens, there are two interpretations—o...

Doll Bones is a coming-of-age story, and as the characters try to figure out who they are, they mature and leave childhood behind. At the beginning of the book, Zach, Alice, and Poppy use toys to e...

Kids explore the world and their place in it through play. The intricately imagined game that Zach, Poppy, and Alice have been playing after school in Doll Bones has given them a way to try on diff...

On the cusp of adolescence, the prospect of change seems both scary and exciting for our friends Zach, Alice, and Poppy in Doll Bones. Poppy talks about growing up as a death; Zach seems more open...