Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 09/15/2022 *Starred Review* In this celebration of libraries as bastions of the imagination, a young girl dutifully does her chores with her grandmother, hanging laundry and cleaning the dishes. But her favorite chore is returning books to the library. She hurries through the streets to get to the Carnegie Library, where she has the power of escaping the world by entering foreign experiences through books. With reading, she has the freedom to be anything. Through books she can be other people, like a cook or a crook. She can experience feelings, like being in love or being unhappy. She can even reach more abstract states, like being jazz. Ironically, she learns that being taken to these other realms—surfing rainbows and sailing dreams—through books is ultimately one of the best ways to come back to yourself. Libraries, she says, are a place to be you and also just to be. When she comes home, after more chores, she takes up her library books again, to be another me. The message is a powerful one, delivered with a sparseness of well-chosen words. The artwork, in a graphic design style, is playful and inspiring. Every lover of books, young or old, will see themselves in this story. - Copyright 2022 Booklist.