Budding biologists as well as general fans of pirates, poetry, and wordplay will agree--and it makes a fuller (and less freighted) alternative to Bob Barner's Dem Bones (1996) and other versions of the old teaching spiritual. Both macabre and cheery--a rare treat. --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) This clever, cumulative tale is enhanced by its endpapers, which feature scattered labelled bones at the front and a full skeleton at the back, and playful, dimly lit underwater digital illustrations populated by bug-eyed, curious fish. The rhyme keeps things moving despite the hefty vocabulary (Metacarpals! Phalanges!) and the illustrations make it clear what everything is. Somehow daffy and scholarly at once. --Booklist Online It's a little morbid, but Kolar's digital undersea illustrations are friendly, cartoony, and understated, with humerus, er, humorous details (i.e., a squid making off with the pirate's radius, ulna, and belt) that are all about silliness.

--The Horn Book.