Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 04/15/2023 Based on a true story, Another Band's Treasure tells the tale of Diego, living in a small town in Paraguay, who completely changes the lives of local children by introducing them to music. With no school in town, the children's main source of entertainment is a garbage dump where they go to find hidden treasures. Diego, a musician by nature, has the brilliant idea to offer music lessons to the children. He believes music can keep them out of trouble and teach them valuable skills. The lessons are a hit, but unfortunately Diego does not have enough instruments to provide for the entire class. Enter Nicolas, a local handyman who takes on the challenge of crafting instruments made from common items found at the landfill. The students are amazed by the instruments and develop a passion for music that they carry throughout their lives. Xie's soft, sketchy artwork nicely captures the atmosphere of the town, and a pop of color for the first homemade instrument emphasizes how life changing it is. A truly inspiring tale, perfect for middle-grade readers. - Copyright 2023 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 05/26/2023 Gr 3–6—Daniel and his sister, Ada, live outside the capital of Paraguay, where the community processes the materials of the city's landfill. Villager Diego decides to teach music to the local children to fill their time, as there is no formal school. He and Nicolas, a carpenter, build instruments out of the discarded raw material around them for the students to play. Credited as "inspired by the story of Favio Chavez," whose "recycled orchestra" initiative was dramatized in Susan Hood and Sally Wern Comport's Ada's Violin and the documentary Landfill Harmonic, Xie's adaptation focuses on how music can inspire joy and bring people together. Her pages foreground a male perspective, and readers initially see the community declaim music as an extravagance. The emotive power of instrumental performance is gradually valorized in how it reduces competitiveness, bullying, and rewards a practical, mechanical mind. Readers unfamiliar with the true story may wonder why Ada's tin-can violin is the only thing to be rendered in color in the pen-and-ink illustrations, giving it a power that is never mirrored in Diego's uplifting performances or Nicholas's steel-drum guitar—despite the latter actually being referred to as "magic." And, considering that Daniel is positioned as the transformed hero who returns home at the finale, the prominent depiction of Ada's violin is more puzzling than moving. VERDICT Xie's sparse fabrication of real events never successfully achieves the admittedly difficult task of visually depicting how music can touch the spirit. Small human moments abound, but the story's attempts to portray more sweeping emotions fall short.—Benjamin Russell - Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.