Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 08/08/2023 *Starred Review* This beautifully illustrated picture book brings together the author's Chinese heritage and Jewish religion. Ho thoughtfully compares aspects of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and the Asian Lunar New Year, from ways of expressing wishes for the new year to special foods. Often one page of a spread is devoted to depicting Rosh Hashanah customs and the other to Lunar New Year customs, while at other times, both aspects nestle closely on the same page, emphasizing the cultures’ similarities. Scurfield wields her brightly toned inks with joyful precision, filling the pages with colorful details that expand on the similarities and differences between the two traditions, as described in the brief lines of text, and show them in action. The illustrations are particularly helpful when the text takes a broader or more general point of view. In addition to the main story, the book features 10 pages of back matter, mainly for adults, including an author's note explaining Ho's personal background and a visual glossary with detailed descriptions of many of the symbols and traditions found throughout the book. An excellent look at varied New Year customs that celebrates multiculturalism in a way young readers of all backgrounds can easily grasp. - Copyright 2023 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 07/01/2023 Gr 1–3—Inspired by his own Chinese and Jewish backgrounds, Ho contrasts the different ways New Year is celebrated in the two traditions in order to highlight the commonalities that lie beneath—from special foods to new clothes, from blowing the shofar to sending paper lanterns into the sky, from bidding goodbye to bad luck by sweeping it out the door to dropping pebbles or bread crumbs into a stream (taschlich). Both the Jewish and Asian New Year celebrations, he writes, "bring family home. Children and grandchildren reunite with bubbies and zaydies, rejoice with ma mas and yeh yehs, and remember the ancestors who live in our hearts." In her radiant illustrations, Scurfield depicts a biracial couple and their children enjoying the double set of festivities and rituals, in public and intimate domestic settings. The author concludes with descriptions of the two "lunisolar" calendars and expansive notes on each set of holiday rituals, symbols, and practices. VERDICT An illuminating set of contrasts and parallels likely to leave younger audiences primed to welcome different ways of celebrating every version of the new year and to compare them with those of their own families.—John Edward Peters - Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.