Forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle’s We Carry Their Bones is a true story about the Dozier School for Boys in Florida. Using forensic and DNA testing, Kimmerle searched for justice for those boys who endured abuse, cruelty, and even death. I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this well-researched, powerful, heartbreaking book.

This is a fascinating look at a little known period in America's Jim Crow south. The writing is not the strongest part, but the information is important and worth sticking through.

This book tells the story of the Dozier Boys School in Florida. This true story shows the lengths that researchers went to uncover the boys left behind, help the families have some closure on their losses, and ultimately bring justice through the exhumation of many unmarked graves in the schools’ area.
This was an interesting read, and would be great for people who enjoyed the book Just Mercy.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for a digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

I wish this had been better written. I started skimming around the half way mark.
Thank you very much to William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC.

The content of this book was fascinating, but it definitely could have been structured better. I learned about the Dozier school after reading The Nickel Boys, and I really wanted to like this more than I did, but it was very repetitive.

While I feel like I am familiar with quite a bit of true crime stories, this is one I had not heard a thing about.

And it is absolutely heartbreaking.

At the turn of the century, young boys were sent to the school for crimes as harmless as truancy and trespassing. The boys sent there, many of whom were black, were subject to brutal abuse, routinely hired out to local farmers by the school's management as indentured labor, and died either at the school or attempting to escape its brutal conditions.
Erin Kimmerle, a leading forensic anthropologist, stepped in to locate the school's graveyard to determine the number of graves and who was buried there, thus beginning the process of reuniting the boys with their families through forensic and DNA testing.

The story of what happened at the Dozier School for Boys is absolutely horrible. Through her book, Erin has given a voice to these forgotten boys and their families!
The stories the men told themselves and the stories of the families will just break your heart!

Thank you so much to @netgalley for this gifted ARC. It came out June 14, 2022.

If you enjoy true crime, definitely pick this one up!

I absolutely loved this book. It hooked me and kept me turning pages until I was done. Finished it in two days! The character development was strong, and the premise was unique enough that it didn't feel like anything else I've read.

I had never heard of this school or the abuses outlined here. Going into something like this blind is always daunting due to the subject matter. This author did a good job of laying out the situation, how her work was important, and what was at stake. It is unfortunate and terrible to learn of the atrocities that have befallen children in this country and beyond but we must know the truth in order to not repeat it. Burying and literally paving over such truths should not be an option if we are going to avoid similar fates in the future. I appreciate this author for all they have done to ensure that what happened at this school did not stay buried. All of the families involved deserved real answers and the truth.

We Carry Their Bones is a compelling and heartrending account of the notorious Dozier School for Boys by Dr. Erin Kimmerle. Released 14th June 2022 by HarperCollins on their William Morrow imprint, it's 256 pages and is available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. 

The last few years have seen a number of apologies and (too late and too few) reparations for appalling crimes committed against children deemed unwanted, delinquent, poor, or the wrong ethnicity (Native and black). This is another such, from a forensic anthropologist who was engaged to excavate the remains (often unmarked and mixed up) from the Dozier school after the state of Florida wished to sell the land on which it once stood and which was blocked by relatives and survivors of the school's 110 year history. 

It's written as an exposé, and suffers a bit for the inflammatory outraged style of writing. The facts of the case are horrific enough, over the course of the school's history, likely over 100 students (and two members of staff) died or were killed while resident at, or escaping from, the school. It was in operation until 2011 and only closed after decades of serious and undeniable allegations of abuse, sexual and physical torture, and inhumane conditions. 

The book does include numerous photographs, charts, and facsimiles, but it is not annotated. The language is layman accessible and not rigorously academic, which is a positive feature, but some better annotation would have made the whole a more structured, less chaotic/repetitive read. 

Four stars, a brutal and depressing read. I found myself outraged throughout most of the book by the disgusting cover-ups and official impediments to open investigation up to the absolute end. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I thought The Nickel Boys was such a stirring read that when I read the synopsis for We Carry Their Bones by Erin Kimmerle, I knew I had to read it. Kimmerle investigates the Dozier Boys School and the atrocities committed there. As one would imagine, the content of this book is quite devastating, but it's also a thoughtful and fitting tribute to the boys and their families.

Many thanks to the author, publish, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

3 stars because of its relevance but oh how very dull the rest of the book is.

This book deals with the horrendous things done to young boys, particularly to black boy whil the Dozier School was in business. Incorrigible boys they said were sent there but many were because of minor infractions or being an orphan. Easily disposable, these young boy were beaten and tortured and in a time where segregation ran rampant pretty much ignored by the state and community.

It was so sad that so many were thrown into unmarked graves and later the Erin Kimmerle and her team went through a multitude of battles to see that these boys were identified and returned to their families.

Opened in 1900, Those who were confined there an survived had vivid memories of the atrocities present. Some eighty-one boys lost their lives there. The White House Boys as they were known through the efforts of Kimmerle and her staff have finally been allowed entrance to the grounds of this institution. The school closed in 2011.

Thanks you to NetGalley for a copy of this story. I only wish it had not been so detailed about the archeology and more focused on the families and the boys lost.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and this story needed to be heard. However, I do think there was a lot of repetitive information from chapter to chapter; it almost seemed like separate articles stitched together to make a book at some points when the same information was given as if we hadn't already read it in a previous chapter. I also felt that more words could've been given to the history of the school instead of the author's work. That being said, this book tells a very important story and it made me want to look more into this school and others like it.

This is such a sad story, but so important to tell. Kimmerle seemed to fully research this horrific time period in Florida's history and showed it from all sides (survivors, families of those whose relatives went "missing" or had vague details about their death, bureaucracy, and the work her and her team completed).

Writing wise, the story was a bit repetitive and could use some editing. Overall, 4 stars.

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

Erin Kimmerle shares the story of her remarkable work as a forensic archeologist in excavating the unmarked graves of former inmates of a notorious Florida reform school. The "Dozier" school was founded in 1900 and closed in 2011, At one time, it was the largest reform school in the United States. In her combination history, and memoir, she brings her personal perspective to the work she did to identify the bodies on "Boot Hill" on the grounds of the school, her personal connections with former residents who sought closure from their traumatic experiences at the school and her relationship with the citizens of Marianna, Florida many of whom resisted her intention to carry out this project. The school was a significant employer and the stories coming from former inmates, most of whom were there in the 1950s and 1960s revealed experiences of staff inflicting brutal beatings and sexually assaulting some of their charges. Boys died and were buried in unmarked graves before their families were notified. Many suspected foul play. There were no records of who was buried where and, as Kimmerle's project made national news, the records about how many bodies were buried at Boot Hill understated the actual count. Through DNA testing and examination of remains, the project was able to identify and return some of the remains to relatives. Kimmerle tells this story from her personal perspective, including how she thought and felt about the living survivors of Dozier, the dead boys' living relatives, and how she worked with others to secure access to the site, how they carried out the work, and at all times their focus on the humanity of the victims and their right to be recognized and counted.

I generally found Kimmerle a gifted story teller, but the narrative was often repetitive. Sometimes I appreciated her reminding us of which deceased inmate she was talking about and other times I felt like it was filler. This is true about repetitions of procedures they used on the dig and even the way she described her feelings. I wanted to see the pictures that were missing from the digital version I read an I found the report on her project online. It was fascinating and, I'm sorry to say, I liked it better than the book. Nonetheless, this too is a fascinating read, Kimmerle is an interesting and gifted person and I enjoyed her work.

An infamous yet disturbing piece of Florida's history that I was interested in learning more about. However, I found this book to be poorly written, repetitive, and dry. The author spent more time talking about herself and her anthropologic technology than the actual history of this "reform school". I made it halfway through the book (after falling asleep a few times midsentence) before giving up on reading it. Knowing Kimmerle's resume didn't need to take up as much of the book as it did. I also didn't care to hear about her grants and ground penetrating radar a multitude of times. She focused on the difficulties she ran into trying to investigate the case, rather than the forensic investigation itself. I wanted details regarding the history and accounts from boys who survived the tumultuous experience and abuse. I feel like this was an afterthought when writing the book. I very rarely give up on reading, but even getting halfway through this felt like a chore.

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(Review is on this site currently...I would give it 3 1/2 stars...but closer to four.)

DOUG

I started to read this books, and not to make light of the deaths of the Black children but this book should have just been a news story. The writing is very repetitive and there is no further information provided that would make me read this whole book.

So on the surface this is a really interesting work about archaeology and how it relates to restorative justice and gave me a lot of information about a subject I'd never really considered. Below the surface (pardon the pun) lies a whole other story, one of an absolute tragedy and something we should all be ashamed of. Tell their stories, don't let the truth stay buried.

This was a hard read. As a mom of boys, it was difficult to sit through this one.

Erin Kimmerle goes through the history and the archaeological works on the property, the crimes that were committed, and the dark history start to come to light.

Interesting read overall.

I received this a free ARC from NetGalley. I loved this book. I couldn't put it down. It was a quick and easy read and so fascinating. I was invested in the information and did some research to see if more of the remains were reunited with their families. I will definitely be looking forward to reading more of her books.