Bound To Stay Bound

View MARC Record
 

Full Text Reviews:

Bulletin for the Center... - 11/01/2007 Ben, the narrator of this dystopic picture book, lives in fear of the evil that has befallen his world: beset by “woolvs,” and not the wild-animal kind, “the sitee is hush, the traffik long-ago gon,” and the people avoiding the streets. He’s humanly connected only to his neighbor, Mrs. Radinski, who encourages him and rescues and comforts him when he’s stranded, panic-stricken, outside; when he one day finds her apartment empty, he bravely goes out into the streets to search for her, deciding he “will no longer let the woolvs forse me to scrooch.” This is ultimately a fable more than a story, and its dark and desperate vision has a post-apocalyptic appeal. Unfortunately, it’s mostly confusing rather than mysterious (it initially seems as if this view of things is the boy’s delusion, and that Mrs. Radinski is encouraging him back toward reality); the “woolvs” are so nonspecific as to weaken the story’s point rather than make it broadly applicable, so that Ben’s final quest, in which the audience is invited to join, is too vague to be inspiring. The book’s creative spelling is effective in suggesting disorder, but it makes the text a struggle for the kids likeliest to appreciate an entry-level dystopia, so the most effective sharing method would be to read it aloud and forego the orthographic impact. Mixed-media illustrations combine harsh scrawls of charcoal, depicting the spiky, claustrophobic city, with washes of mood-altering color, especially fiery oranges and dingy ochres; upward perspectives add to the trapped feeling and contrast with the penultimate overhead view. While audiences may be intrigued by the enigmatic drama, this is ultimately more ambitious than successful, likely to leave audiences perplexed; for a picture book of foreboding and doom, turn instead to Gaiman’s The Wolves in the Walls (BCCB 9/03). DS - Copyright 2007 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

School Library Journal - 09/01/2007 Gr 6-9-Shortlisted for three top children's book prizes in Australia, this picture book for older readers is the collaboration of an honored author and illustrator team. In a post-apocalyptic world, a teen protagonist lives alone in a derelict building. Terrified of the outside world and of the "woolvs" he sees there, the boy is tempted out of his apartment by what he misapprehends as a glimpse of blue sky. He is rescued by his only friend, elderly Mrs. Radinski, who ventures into the dark streets to save him. When the woman later disappears, the boy must reach deep for the courage to go looking for her. Every creative decision succeeds in making this a disorienting and harrowing story. Presentation of powerful themes is singular, the seemingly scrawled text being entirely phonetic with occasional invented words. The jarring reading experience, which readers will have to pore over, heightens the impression of a brutal, off-kilter world. Intensity is further magnified by Spudvilas's visual interpretation of the boy's world in heavy, aggressive charcoal line and watercolor wash, the palette dark with rare splashes of color. The wolves that terrify the boy are never portrayed. In the end, hope can be found in his determination to free himself from the crippling fear that controls his life. A final portrait shows him, brave but vulnerable, addressing readers, issuing the challenge, "Joyn me." This stunning title will best succeed with a visually literate audience who, growing up in a world of potential chaos, can read metaphor and appreciate ambiguity.-Kate McClelland, Perrot Memorial Library, Old Greenwich, CT Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information. - Copyright 2007 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 11/15/2007 This disquieting picture book, an award winner in Wild’s Australia, packs a wallop. “There are woolvs in the sitee,” begins the propulsive first-person narrative, the lines laid out at disorientingly skewed angles, the typeface reminiscent of graffiti scrawl. Deliberately crude spellings buttress implications of a world gone awry, as if civilization has degraded beyond the niceties of spelling and grammar. The speaker alludes to a bleak existence “scrooched” in hiding from wolves. That the wolves are metaphorical references to some dark presence (soldiers? terrorists?) comes clear through the bleak, expressionistic artwork, which portrays no true beasts, but rather a blighted, barbed-wire-strung, urban landscape. When his kindly neighbor disappears, the narrator is galvanized to leave his cellar, encouraging readers on the final, stirring page: “Joyn me.” This ambitious allegory feels like a snippet from a longer dystopian narrative, but its brooding, engimatic atmosphere and call to action will lure readers back for multiple viewings. Shelve it in collections aimed at teens, who can make connections to the proverbial boy who cried wolf and historical times of crisis. - Copyright 2007 Booklist.

View MARC Record
Loading...



  • Copyright © Bound to Stay Bound Books, Inc. All rights reserved.
  • Privacy Policy