The Road of Bones is a 2006 young adult novel written by Anne Fine

Anne Fine

Anne Fine, OBE FRSL is a British author best known for her children's books, of which she has written more than 50. She also writes for adults...

. It was shortlisted for the 2007 Carnegie Medal

Carnegie Medal

The Carnegie Medal is a literary award established in 1936 in honour of Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and given annually to an outstanding book for children and young adults. It is awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...

. The judges described it as being "incredibly well-written" and having "political resonance for young people".

Setting

The story is set in Stalinist Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, a totalitarian state with prison camps in the icy north. The author has said that it was inspired by Anne Applebaum

Anne Applebaum

Anne Elizabeth Applebaum is a journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has written extensively about communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. She has been an editor at The Economist, and a member of the editorial board of The Washington Post...

's Gulag

Gulag: A History

Gulag: A History, also published as Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps, is a non-fiction book covering the history of the Soviet Gulag system. It was written by American author Anne Applebaum and published in 2003 by Doubleday. Gulag won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the...

.

Plot summary

The story centres on a Russian boy named Yuri who in school is taught that the revolution liberated his country, and that the new leaders are always working for greater good. But the life for his family and people around him is full of poverty and misery, and the government only punishes those who protest. And one day Yuri is considered an 'enemy of the state' for saying a few careless words, and is sent to a camp in the frozen wastelands of Siberia.

Literary significance and reception

Reviewers commented on the power and intelligence of the book while noting its appropriate bleakness. The Scotsman

The Scotsman

The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....

rated it "without doubt one of the top novels of the year" and the Sunday Times reviewer wrote: "This ambitious book is a rare achievement... This book is subtle, stimulating and morally complex, but it is also evocative and convincing: we feel keenly the chill of both soulless hegemony and its frozen wastes".