2025 Mildred L. Batchelder Award Winner2025 Kirkus Prize Finalist2025 USBBY Outstanding International Book2022 Bologna Children’s Book Fair Illustrators Exhibition winner2021 The White Ravens catalog2021 Tartu Prize for Children’s LiteratureEveryone deserves a quiet, restful retirement. But for John, a newly retired classroom skeleton, life is just beginning. When John is adopted by Grams and Gramps and leaves the classroom to live on their farm, every day is an exciting new adventure: John rides in the car for the first time, makes a snow angel, scares away crooks, and becomes a source of comfort for Grams, Gramps, and their grandkids. With delightful illustrations and a charming cast of characters, John the Skeleton is a quirky, touching, and unforgettable book. Triinu Laan thoughtfully weaves aging and death into the fabric of life, crafting a tender portrait of what it means to care for one another, grow old together, and appreciate the little things.

Triinu Laan is a writer, a manager of cultural activities, a mother of five, and loves wild living more than anything else. Laan lives with her three youngest children, mathematician husband, and self-conscious cat in the countryside in Võru County. Their home language is Võro, which is spoken by about 70,000 people, primarily in south Estonia. Her stories convey the understanding that the worlds of adults and children, the living and the dead, and humans and animals are not so different as one may think.