Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 05/01/2018 Gr 2–5—This comprehensive volume includes the seven short stories featured in Abouet & Sapin's Akissi: Cat Invasion, along with 14 others. The tales, translated from French, follow Akissi's day-to-day life in her Ivory Coast town. In "Good Mothers," Akissi and friends steal their neighbor's baby to play "mums." In "Sunday Feast," Akissi consumes all the food for Communion at church (including the wine) before the service begins. In "Midnight Pee," Akissi's brother, Fofana, refuses to wake up to accompany her to the outside bathroom, so she urinates on his blanket. The short story format sacrifices some character development, but the dynamic among Akissi, her brother, and their parents is classic nuclear family drama and hilarity. Realistic moments are not softened, such as when Akissi eats rotten fruit off the ground and contracts tapeworms that crawl out of her nose. But with its gross-out humor and plucky heroine, the collection reads like Dennis the Menace meets Pearls Before Swine, set in West Africa—and may appeal to fans of both. Sapin's art is earth-toned, with a scratchy yet precise line quality. The panel structure is consistent, with no more than six similarly sized panels per page. Dialogue font is generally small. Bonus content includes three recipes and instructions on how to make African braids. VERDICT This volume fills a gap in children's comics featuring African characters and settings. Highly recommended for middle grade graphic novel collections.—Alec Chunn, Eugene Public Library, OR - Copyright 2018 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 05/15/2018 Abouet’s childhood memories of growing up in Côte d’Ivoire are the basis for these slice-of-life strips starring charmingly impish Akissi. Each six-page comic follows Akissi as she comes up with a scheme, which often leads to mild mayhem. Akissi gets in trouble for climbing a coconut tree, accidentally abducting a baby, eating too many sweets, and blaming her brother for her misdeeds, among many other things. Her selfishness, impetuousness, and tattling are all played for laughs, and the occasional story where she does something kind or guileless nicely breaks up the pattern. Sapin’s fine-lined artwork is filled with vibrant, saturated color, and his cartoonish figures are comically expressive, from their over-the-top gestures to their slapstick humor. Akissi’s irrepressible mischievousness doesn’t come without consequences—her brother taunts her meanly, her mother routinely doles out scoldings, and she often gets injured—but the lack of lessons is typical of European kids’ humor comics. While aspects of daily life in Côte d’Ivoire will be unfamiliar to many, Akissi’s antics will ring true to kids across the board. - Copyright 2018 Booklist.