Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 08/01/2022 K-Gr 2—"This is my shape," begins a never-seen narrator on a page showing a firmly outlined blue gumdrop. When the shape complains that it is a nothing, the narrator turns it into a cat. "I want a horse," demands the cat. But horses are hard to draw, so the narrator proceeds to cajole the cat into accepting things that are easier to draw: squirrel, beaver, bunny, dog. Of course, dogs chase cats, who then need hills and skateboards in order to escape. And thus, a zany exchange ensues with the unreasonable cat continuing to demand a fun, fast horse and the narrator diverting him with all manner of gumdrop-shaped alternatives. When the artist discovers that it is, indeed, possible to draw a horse, that horse has no interest in running. He wants a bicycle, which is simply too hard to draw. With antecedents in Harold and the Purple Crayon and the "Elephant and Piggie" books, Harper wields her own mischievous humor. Simple, childlike lines are filled with flat colors on an expansive graph paper ground. VERDICT An easy-to-read text with exclamatory speech bubbles and pictorial antics will tickle funny bones in this off-kilter circular story.—Jan Aldrich Solow - Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 09/01/2022 *Starred Review* The book’s opening line states, “This is my shape.” A gray gumdroplike thing, thinly outlined in black, the shape concernedly declares, “I am a nothing shape.” The artist-narrator responds by adding more gumdrops—some tiny, others elongated—plus a whiskered face. Voilà, a cat! The first thing the newly minted cat does is request a horse. The narrator explains that they cannot draw a horse, but they try to make the cat happy by modifying the trusty gumdrop into a surprising number of figures and objects—a beaver, a turtle hatching from an egg, a bear living in a large house, a barking dog that regrettably likes chasing the cat (a hastily added hill tires the pooch, thank goodness), and so on. Still determined to get a horse, the cat gives the artist a pep talk that finally results in a horse friend—using the same shape! Unfortunately, the horse wants a bicycle . . . This book is clever in its simple story and imaginative, doodlelike illustrations, which are printed on pages like graph paper. Easy text appears in both standard form and yellow speech bubbles, giving it an easy-to-follow, graphic-novel feel. Creative and loaded with humor, this story will have kids giggling in seconds and trying their hand at drawing a horse—or at least a gumdrop. - Copyright 2022 Booklist.