Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 12/15/2021 *Starred Review* As winter’s first snowflakes fall, a well-­organized mouse named Cornbread feels content that he has enough food to last through the season. His friend Poppy, who always chooses play over work, has gathered very little. She proposes a scary solution: foraging on Holler Mountain. Thinking about its slippery rocks and predatory owls, they both shiver, but with no alternative, they pull a wagon up the mountainside. Along the way, they meet a vegetarian owl, who offers a lift to a friend’s cabin. There Ms. Ruthie, a former neighbor, welcomes the mice, talks with them, and turns their wagon into a sled filled with her surplus foods. The grateful friends ski back home and restock Poppy’s shelves. Readers expecting a predictable moral similar to that in Aesop’s “The Grasshopper and the Ant” will particularly enjoy the unexpected twist at the story’s end. While tales about “two good friends” are a long tradition in beginning-reader books, Cordell takes the convention and makes it his own. The well-differentiated main characters are equally likeable, and both are able to shift their views, based on their experiences. The text flows well, while the lively ink-and-watercolor illustrations deftly create settings and clearly reveal characters’ emotions. A rewarding choice for young readers. - Copyright 2021 Booklist.