This was very heavy and heart breaking. I thought it was well written and informative. I would recommend it. It is very heavy material though.

What a read! I love anything true crime. This didn’t disappoint. I look forward to more by this author in the future. I will share this with others!

This book details the horrifying life young boys faced in rural Florida at the turn if the century, being forced into hard labor for nothing more than not having anywhere to live, or for being in the wrong place, they were tortured, abused and neglected. The author used factual documents to recreate the events leading up to the closing of the Dozier reform school after 111 years of silence. Then took us through the political landmines in which she tried to provide closure to the boys and their families.You must read this book.

“They was throwaways”

In a devoutly religious Ireland, babies and young girls were brutalized and discarded in the infamous Magdalene Laundries. In Canada and the United States, Indigenous children were brutalized and discarded by Indian Industrial Schools in the name of civilizing them: “kill the Indian, save the man.” The book “We Carry Their Bones” reveals how young boys in Florida were imprisoned, beaten and discarded– after all, “... they was throwaways.”

What does it tell us when atrocities are allowed to run rampant for decades, and people who sincerely believe themselves to be morally sound have no problem looking the other way. No one ever seems aware of what is going on and it is a total surprise and shock when one day the bones in the graves start talking.

The stories surfacing about the Arthur G. Dozier Boys School included reported whipping, torture, sexual assault, and vague explanations for death. For over a century the school served as a reform school under various names, had recently closed under the cloud of these accusations, and there was an urgency by the people of Marianna, Florida to sell off the property as quickly and quietly as possible.

A number of haunted men emerged with allegations which had tormented them since their stay at Dozier. These men called themselves the White House Boys, named for the building where beatings were doled out. They were traumatized by memories of classmates disappearing, taken away, never returning. One man told of having to bury his own brother in an unmarked grave and having to remain at that school.

The author, forensic anthropologist Eric Kimmerle, details her battles attempting to get justice for these men and the families of boys whose bodies were never located. Her mission seemed simple enough– identify and study the burial remains using sophisticated scientific techniques. She encountered threats and a tremendous amount of resistance from the community, people determined to keep the past sealed.

Particularly disturbing is the story about a fire in 1914 where seven boys were burned to death after being chained to their beds in isolation cells. Firefighters and spectators could only watch and listen to the screams as the building collapsed in flames. Later the remains were haphazardly mixed and buried in unmarked plots.

This utter disregard for human life is just flooring. Children were imprisoned as early as five years old for crimes such as smoking, skipping school, running away or merely being unwanted. Being poor was enough but being black was also a factor. Seventy percent of the boys buried were African American.

The question keeps looming– how could a society ever allow this to happen? This was not the dark ages, the Spanish Inquisition, or diabolical Nazi monsters. This did not happen in some distant third world dictatorship where genocide is something we shake our heads at in a casual disbelief. This was a cruel disposal of children butchered because they were easy to ignore. One of the town’s residents argued with the author “...they was throwaways…” Dehumanize a group and there is no empathy.

–In moments like this, I understood what William Faulkner meant when he wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” – from author Erin Kimmerle.

Could something like this ever happen again? We have come so far and would never do something as callous as, say… warehousing children in over-crowded holding cells.

Passages of human cruelty are always difficult to read, especially in a true crime account such as this. Portions of the book get a little bogged down in the science and technique of excavating, demonstrating how painstaking the process is. An important, eye-opening book.

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for providing the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #WeCarryTheirBones #NetGalley

If you enjoyed Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys then you owe it to yourself to hear the rest of the story. We Carry Their Bones is the true story of The Dozier School for Boys reform school in Marianna, Florida which for decades was the setting of sanctioned racism, servitude, horrid abuse/torture and even murder. They were called throwaways. Kimmerle is the archeologist hired to help determine what happened to the children and teenagers buried in two graveyards on the grounds. She has written a memorable, informative true crime story that I will never forget.
On the Dozier grounds the bones of fifty-five young boys were discovered. Fifty- five boys as young as six who ultimately were given a death sentence for generally minor or trumped up charges. How could this have happened? How do we come to terms with such atrocities? We lost them and we lost all they would have become and all of the generations to come if they had lived. How do we ensure that it never happens again? We have to be informed and not shy away from the worst of ourselves. We have to remember.
If you enjoy true crime stories, black history, archaeology, or forensics then consider reading We Carry Their Bones. I deducted one star for some issues with organization and lack of follow through.

I received a drc from William Morrow via Netgalley.

Before it closed in 2011, the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, was the subject of repeated state investigations for abuse and unexplained deaths of the boys who were sentenced there. The correctional institution was a place where boys were dumped. Many of the inmates had been sentenced for criminal offenses, but some (especially children of color) could be sentenced for “vagrancy”—a “crime” that forensic anthropologist and author Erin Kimmerle notes was often used to snatch people (again, especially people of color) from around the state to lease out for prison labor. All of those investigations found evidence of extreme abuse and yet the school was remained open for 111 years, after dozens of children had died and thousands more suffered irreparable psychological and physical harm. We Carry Their Bones is Kimmerle’s attempt to document the crimes that took place at the Dozier School and her role in uncovering dozens of unmarked graves on the School’s land when the University of South Florida finally got permission to conduct a forensic investigation in 2012.

We Carry Their Bones is the second book I’ve read that was based, at least in part, on events at the Dozier School. In 2020, I read Colson Whitehead’s gutting novel, The Nickel Boys. That novel is part of the reason I wanted to read We Carry Their Bones. I wanted to know more about the history behind Whitehead’s book. That history is very grim indeed. The Florida School for Boys—later renamed the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys—was founded in 1900 as a place for minor boys to be sentenced by the court system. The institution was segregated. When investigators recommended reforms (when they weren’t asking for the whole school to be shut down), the few reforms that were enacted were usually only implemented on the white side of the school. For example, one of the early investigations required that the school install fire escapes on the dormitories, they were only added to the white ones. Only years later were fire escapes added to all the dormitories. A fire destroyed one of the white dormitories in 1914. At least seven people died in that fire. It would have been worse if not for the two fire escapes–although Kimmerle points out that the doors to those fire escapes were locked and chained. Guards and children had to break the locks to get out.

Almost 100 years later, Kimmerle and her team from the University of South Florida found those seven bodies, co-minged in a confusing number of coffins, in unmarked graves on the school grounds. School and legal records (those that could be found) recorded 31 burials on the school grounds. Between 2011 and 2012, fifty-five graves had been found. The initial USF investigation used ground-penetrating radar and a technique called ground-truthing to find the graves in the graveyard. Ground-truthing is the removal of a shallow layer of soil to see if anomalies detected by the radar were burial sites. Kimmerle and her team didn’t have permission to dig deeper to confirm burials or exhume bodies. They, relatives of children who died at Dozier, and former inmates had to go to court repeatedly to get official permission to exhume bodies, identify those they could, and rebury them. Kimmerle frequently shares her memories of conversations with grieving family members and former inmates. Even decades later, the grief and fear and sorrow and anger are fresh. The former inmates, notably the White Hosue Boys (who took their name from the building on campus where the worst beatings were meted out), and family members never stopped asking questions about what happened at Dozier.

I appreciated several things about We Carry Their Bones: Kimmerle’s persistence in getting at least some justice for the children, the former inmates, and the relatives; her forensic expertise; and her efforts to put the crimes of the Dozier school into historical context. That said, I struggled to get through the brief book. We Carry Their Bones is disorganized and repetitive. Events aren’t arranged chronologically or thematically. Some events are told more than once, in similar language. A lot of the school’s history itself is glossed over. I can understand that people who worked at the school would be very unwilling to talk to Kimmerle, but it’s hard to conceive of how the Dozier School was open for so long, almost entirely unchanged in spite of the investigations, without more information. On that score, Kimmerle does touch upon why the residents of Marianna—who for decades staffed the school and were financially supported by it—would have such a hard time a) admitting the crimes that happened at the school and b) accepting that the school’s secrets must come to light. A lot of white Americans resist the fact that their ancestors did terrible things. A lot of the people who fight Kimmerle and other’s efforts were very much alive when those crimes occurred. If they knew, they were complicit. If they didn’t know, they knew people who were involved, either in the brutality itself or the efforts to cover it up.

In sum, although there are some very good parts of We Carry Their Bones and although this is an important story that must be told, I think this book could have used more time with the editors to cut the repetitive elements; suggest areas to add additional, relevant material; and re-organize the overall structure.

Do not go into this book thinking you can blow right through this and then move on. It is absolutely not possible [unless you are a sociopath or psychopath, or someone who has not one drop of empathy, or are a racist, hideous individual, and lets be honest, if you are one of these, the chances of you actually reading this book are slim, so there is that] and you will need time to process much of this while you are reading it. There were days that I could only read 10% and then had to sit in either my tears or my anger and resolve it before moving on with my day.

I do not even know how to begin to write a review for this book [This is best going with little information because you WILL have thoughts and feelings when you read this. And that needs to come about naturally in my opinion]. There is just so much going on in my head and I have just stopped ugly crying over what I have read here on these pages. This is a book that will never, ever leave me and I will never be the same after reading it.

I lived in Florida for a time and it is not a fun place to live at times. Racism and hate and indifference are alive and well there. The parts of this book, where the author and her team butted up against the system and the politicians that hated what they were trying to do, while angering me to the point I felt like I had steam coming out of my head, did not surprise me at all. In a state where their prison system is for-profit and they care more about keeping bodies IN jail than actually helping and rehabilitating them [I know this first-hand. My ex-husband worked for a company that helped ex-convicts [I am pretty sure that he had young adults that came from the reform school - I remember him talking about a horrible school, but he never went into detail because it was just too much for him] get jobs in the community and helped them get counseling and care and the things we learned while he did that job irrevocably changed both of us], a reform school where they could control and "sell-out" the children that lived there would be a minor drop in the bucket, and their deaths, no matter how, would have mattered little. How horrifying this should be for all of us.

I think the author does an excellent job in breaking this all down for the lay person. I am sure there are things that she left out, simply because most of us would not get it. Her writing style is lovely and the way she tells the story in a non-sensationalized way is refreshing. There is no need for this here - the story alone is horrific enough. I love how she becomes friends with these families that are looking for truth and their brothers/cousins/uncles and how, from day one, respects them and the process and works tirelessly to bring them peace and comfort in any way she can. I admire her so much and would love to shake her hand and thank her for the work she did here [not even going to go into the work she did in the foreign field - wow].

What did surprise me [to a certain degree] was the indifference over finding who these poor boys were and getting them to the family that was left. So many people clearly have no heart and no compassion. WHO could know about boys being buried in the dark of the night, with no coffins, in secret and NOT want the truth? Apparently, a lot of people. Shame on them. That makes me sick to my stomach thinking about it.

I was raised to believe in hell. As an adult, I am not sure what I believe about it anymore, but I do hope there is a place of torment for the people that did these horrific acts, allowed it to happen, and knew it was happening and due to money, prestige, pride, and turned a blind eye to it all. That belief, and the fact that many of the people looking for their siblings/relatives for a lifetime were able to finally lay them to rest, are all that gives me peace over this.

Thank you to NetGalley, Erin Kimmerle, and William Morrow & Company for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Somehow I never knew about the Dozier school or anything related to the topic of this book nor have I read any fiction about it. This work was illuminating and heart breaking.

I thought that this was a wonderful book that sheds light on an important topic that is extremely relevant.

We Carry Their Bones is a non-fiction book in which the author and forensic anthropologist, Erin Kimmerle, writes about her experience with the investigation of the Dozier Boys School. If that name sounds familiar, that’s because the school was the inspiration behind the 2020 Pulitzer winner, The Nickel Boys. For the boys who were sent to Dozier, they would leave the school haunted by the violence and abuse that they had suffered for the rest of their lives - if they even got out of it alive at all. Kimmerle’s objective was to exhume the bodies of the boys buried on the school’s property so that their families could claim the remains.Though it might seem difficult to believe that anyone would be against allowing people who spent decades searching for their relatives the opportunity to give them a proper burial, Kimmerle’s task wasn’t an easy one. She and her team had to fight tooth and nail to bring some sort of justice for the boys who were killed or died in mysterious circumstances and were hastily buried on school grounds. Back then, these boys were considered throwaways - they were sent to the reformatory for such ‘crimes’ as skipping school or being an orphan. Kimmerle in a very detailed way explains the way poverty, racism, and the lack of the civil rights we have today lead to the boys’ deaths, and how some members of the local community cared more about the town’s reputation than the truth. It’s a very powerful read, although I did find parts of it quite dense and the timeline a bit confusing.

TLDR: We Carry Their Bones is an emotional, difficult book about the history that isn’t known well enough, but that deserves our attention.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

We Carry Their Bones by Erin Kimmerle

We Carry Their Bones recounts the archeological search for the graves of young boys who died at the Dozier School for Boys in Florida. The author, Erin Kimmerle, led the search.

I started this book a few days ago while riding the train into work. And I immediately cried. I am so pissed. How could this happen to hundreds of young boys (and disproportionately young Black boys)? How did I not know about this until a few days ago?

I applaud the strength of survivors and family members of the deceased boys who fought for historic justice and to know what happened. And I applaud the hard work of the team who made the excavation possible.

I appreciated how the science was explained in understandable and accessible ways. And it’s also important that Kimmerle framed events that happened at the school with context and emphasized how systemic racism, Jim Crow laws, and child labor led to children as young as SIX being taken from their parents and imprisoned for “crimes” like smoking, truancy, and running away from home.

The Dozier School for Boys was the inspiration for The Nickel Boys, which I will now be reading soon.

This book has every content warning you can think of. But, if you’re able to, definitely read it.

Thank you @netgalley and @williammorrowbooks for the #gifted copy!

Once upon a time there was a boys reform School deep in Florida called the Dozier school for boys. Some of their because they committed minor in fractions and some were there for the education but all we’re vulnerable. The last thing they wanted was to have to see the one armed man when he was in the little shed because they knew if they did they might not come back. Despite the state of Florida “investigating“ to school nothing happened. It wouldn’t be until an architect took it upon themselves to dig up the bones of these poor lost boys and went digging for the truth they were uncovered blatant lies in a belly bear cover-up. The trauma was so horrible a man in his elder years spent time writing in his journal about his own terrible memories and the unfortunate boys who never got the luxury of having memories. This is a sad story I am just glad they have people like Mr. Hara who cares enough to go above and beyond to not only help those less fortunate but those who are amongst the departed. I was amazed to hear about all the victims that are still alive and I’m sure have PTSD. I couldn’t get the thought of the school the abusers who committed unspeakable acts on these boys and of course the boys themselves I can only repeat this is a sad sad story. I was given this book I Net Gally and I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any errors as I am blind and dictate my review but all opinions are definitely my own.

“There is one way to know for certain what is buried beneath the earth’s surface. You dig a hole.”

We Carry Their Bones is a nonfiction investigatory piece about the Dozier Boys School and its haunting history of racism, abuse, and mysterious deaths from 1900-2011, which the state of Florida turned a blind eye to for over 100 years.

Reading this was absolutely chilling and infuriating, but also empowering, to know the author and her colleagues fought for justice, peace, and the truth for the persons, living and deceased, and families that were or knew victims of the school. This was topic I knew nothing about prior and went in blind, but it is an essential part of this nation’s history and teaches us many lessons. I learned a whole lot about forensic anthropology along the way, like about stratigraphy, where the ground tells the secrets that the humans tried to bury (pun intended).

As for writing and organization, I wished the author gave a little personal information about her, her profession, and how she got involved with this story prior to starting in on the investigation to set the stage since it is told in first person and for a while, you don’t know who it is speaking or what their role is. I would have preferred it that way instead of it being sandwiched in the middle of the substance of the investigation. I did end up skipping over a lot of her background that was irrelevant because I was not interested in reading a memoir.

The chapters were reallllllly long and while it was generally told in the chronological story of investigating the school, it did jump around a lot within each chapter and could have been better organized.

I switched to the audiobook at about 25%, which was easier to digest.

I would recommend this one specifically to individuals interested in criminal law (like me), archeology, anthropology, and history, but the topic likely does not hold a mainstream interest.

Thank you to NetGalley, William Morrow, and the author for the e-galley in exchange for an honest review!

I received a free Advanced Reading Copy via NetGalley in exchange for a complete and honest review.

One of the best books I've read in a long while.

After reading The Nickel Boys, it was interesting to read this book from a forensic anthropologist's POV. The topic is difficult and terrible and the author did a nice job of presenting it in a factual, scientific way. It is an important subject and I'm so glad that the author took the time to investigate and bring the facts to the public.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC!

I couldn’t get into this book. I was really interested in the story but kept finding myself putting it down for other books and in the end not finishing it. Not exactly sure why. It wasn’t that it was a bad book, it just didn’t grab my attention like the others I was reading.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of We Carry Their Bones by Erin Kimmerle. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley and Chartwell Books for providing an ARC to review.

Forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle investigates the notorious Dozier Boys School—the true story behind the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Nickel Boys—and the contentious process to exhume the graves of the boys buried there to reunite them with their families.

This book was heartbreaking to read. The reality of what these children went through is overwhelming, and my heart hurt with every chapter. While the topic was tormenting, I felt it was a topic that everyone should have to learn. Through ignorance and disregard, so many children were tortured. We Carried their Bones has inspired me to be more aware of what is happening in the world around me. I give this book a solid 4/5 stars.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review.
While I was vaguely aware of facilities like the Dozier School as a part of our country’s history (and present), I didn’t know the true extent of it. The fact that this school was able to remain open for over a century, and used as a convenient place to place “delinquent” boys shocked and horrified me. Kimmerle does a wonderful job capturing the dark untold history (including the racism and other prejudices that influenced the situation), as well as the recent archaeological efforts, as a part of the project to bring the atrocities to light.

Dr. Kimmerle has written an insider's view into anthropology. Not only will you be presented with the struggles of an archeological dig, but you will also find the beuorocrecy and ethical questions that all anthropologists deal with. If that was all this book was about, I would say maybe it would appeal to anthropologists and their students, but Kimmerle has shared the point of view of victims and illuminated the racism inherent in American life throughout the 20th century and today. I found this book both helpful when examining anthropological approaches and wonderfully written to include the known events that lead to the torture and murders of boys sent to the Dosier reform school.

I suggest this book to anyone interested in True Crime, anthropology, justice, and people seeking the truth about what happened at this (and very likely many other) reform school.

We Carry Their Bones by Erin Kimmerle ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A big thanks to @williammorrowbooks and @netgalley for the ARC. This one will be out June 14!

This is such an important story and absolutely should be read and talked about. Injustice is injustice no matter how much time has passed. I had read the Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (recommend!) a while ago, so I was familiar with the story, but this nonfiction account really shined a light on it.

My three-star rating has nothing to do with content and everything to do with organization of the book. I really struggled with the flow. It would routinely jump from present-day investigation, to the history of the town, to a broader history of the south, to a random personal commentary. While jumping around, it was also repetitive - basically, Florida was difficult to work with, bureaucracy hurdles, racism in the south, and poor record keeping summed up the points. I personally thought it would have made sense to do a history of the school/town and some commentary about a broader history, how Kimmerle decided to get involved, the actual investigation, the findings, and a closure - in that order. All those elements were there; they were just scattered around in a way that didn’t make sense to me as a reader personally.

This book hit its stride when discussing the present investigation and the science behind it. Kimmerle is knowledgeable in her field and explained it well. I enjoyed learning about ground penetrating radar and her how-to process of how she helped bring closure to the families and boys. I also enjoyed learning about her personal motivation and relationships she developed with some of the survivors and their families. It brought a human aspect to the highly scientific process. Wish there was more of this!

All in all, this was a read that gave a voice to the victims and started to tell their tale. We still have a long way to go. As Dr. King once said, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”