Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 10/01/2016 Gr 4–8—Serendipity lives in a dystopian walled city, Lahn Dan (formerly London), where only three classes exist: the Pbs (lead), Cus (silver), and Aus (gold). Having just lost her mother, Serendipity jumps at the chance to work with Professor Nimbus as a Cus storyteller. But things take a strange turn when she meets Miss Caritas, who helps Serendipity open the locket from her mother. Inside the locket she discovers a map that leads outside the wall around the city and purports to show where horses can be found. Serendipity is skeptical, as she has been told her entire life that horses, as well as the whole world outside the wall, were destroyed by deadly gases. But she does not want to spend her life as a Pbs, or even a Cus. She soon meets Tab and his dog, Mouse. Everything changes once Serendipity and Tab get outside the city, and she struggles to make sense of it all while searching for the horses and trying to avoid the Minister's men who seek to return her to Lahn Dan. The awkward dialect and wording that Serendipity uses to tell her story take some getting used to (words such as amazering, for example), but this makes for a slightly dark tale that's appropriate for middle grade readers. VERDICT A general purchase where middle grade dystopias are in demand.—Heidi Grange, Summit Elementary School, Smithfield, UT - Copyright 2016 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 03/15/2017 Inside the walled city of Lahn Dan, Serendipity and her mother live as Pbs, the lowest of the city’s three castes. When Serendipity’s mother dies, she leaves Serendipity a figurine of a horse, an animal that has long been extinct in the world. Soon, she learns more about her mother’s history and discovers a map that might lead to horses. When unnerving members of the upper caste start showing an interest in Serendipity, she joins forces with Tab, a scrappy orphan boy, and his dog, Mouse, fleeing out into the world in search of horses—if only the world they’re running from doesn’t catch up to them first. Savvy readers will quickly catch on that Serendipity’s Lahn Dan is a futuristic, dystopian London (Lahn Dan is located in Gray Britain; the police are headquartered in Bucknam Place). This narrative style takes some getting used to, and Serendipity’s journey can feel a bit disjointed, but for larger collections, this debut offers up a solid dose of middle-grade adventure. - Copyright 2017 Booklist.