Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 12/15/2012 To find out what really happened to her purportedly dead sister, sharpshooting 13-year-old Georgie Burkhardt and her sister’s one-time suitor Billy McCabe follow the trail of pigeon hunters and discover far worse going on near Placid, Wisconsin, in 1871. Georgie tells her story in a first-person narrative that rings true to the time and place. She is smart, determined, and not a little blind to the machinations of adults around her, including Billy, who has been sent by Georgie’s storekeeper grandfather to follow her and keep her safe. She does notice that Billy is well made, but this is no love story; it’s a story of acceptance, by Georgie, her family, and her small town. Timberlake weaves in the largest passenger pigeon nesting ever seen in North America, drought and fatal fires along Lake Michigan that year, a currency crisis that spawned counterfeiters, and advice on prairie travel from an actual handbook from the times. Historical fiction and mystery combine to make this a compelling adventure, and an afterword helps disentangle facts from fiction. - Copyright 2012 Booklist.

Bulletin for the Center... - 02/01/2013 Thirteen-year-old Georgy Burkhardt refuses to believe that the tragic remains being buried in the graveyard of her small Wisconsin town really belong to her beloved and runaway older sister, Agatha. Determined to find Agatha, Georgy sets out during a hot summer in 1871 to follow the trail, armed with her grandfather’s rifle and a horse—well, a mule—belonging to Billy McCabe, Agatha’s former beau. Unfortunately, she’s also accompanied against her will by Billy, who won’t let her go alone and who’s long been a teasing thorn in Georgy’s side. As Georgy’s search continues, she begins to find Billy a solid companion, but she also finds an intertwined collection of secrets and a considerable amount of trouble. Timberlake builds original plotting atop the classic foundation of a journey, flirting with clichés only to subvert or ground them. Readers won’t be sure whom to believe about Agatha, and they may also see, as Georgy does not, how much Georgy’s dream of running the family store with her sister is Agatha’s nightmare. Georgy’s narration is innocent, eager, and rich with appropriate small-town period formality, moving smoothly from comic adolescent petulance to raw plainspoken loss: “There is nothing so final as turning around.” The book additionally brings to atmospheric life the deluge of the passenger pigeon flocks, roosting in colossal numbers and supporting an entire industry of “pigeoners,” and also vividly portrays the foreboding tinder-dry Midwestern setting, where drought crisped the land so that the slightest spark could—and does—ignite the countryside. With its historical backdrop, enjoyable narrative, and endearing heroine, this will appeal both to fans of Philbrick’s The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg (BCCB 1/09) and Kelly’s The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (BCCB 7/09). DS - Copyright 2013 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

School Library Journal - 01/01/2013 Gr 5–8—Thirteen-year-old Georgie Burkhardt can shoot better than anyone in Placid, Wisconsin. She can handle accounts and serve customers in her family's general store. What she can't do is accept that the unrecognizable body wearing her older sister's blue-green gown is Agatha. Determined to discover what happened after Agatha abruptly left town with a group of pigeoners, Georgie sets out to follow her route. In return for the loan of a mule, she reluctantly allows Billy McCabe, one of Agatha's suitors, to accompany her. The journey includes a menacing cougar and ruthless counterfeiters, but Georgie's narration offers more than action-packed adventure. She unravels the tangle of events that led to Agatha's sudden departure and acknowledges her own role. By turns humorous and reflective, Georgie's unique and honest voice includes confusion about her feelings for Billy and doubts about her ability to kill even in desperate circumstances. Timberlake seamlessly integrates information about two significant events that occurred in Wisconsin in 1871: the largest recorded nesting of passenger pigeons in spring and devastating firestorms in fall. Georgie's physical and emotional odyssey that occurs between those two events will linger in readers' minds.—Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato - Copyright 2013 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Loading...