Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 03/15/2017 As America’s doors threaten to shut against refugees, this memoir could not be timelier. As a 10-year-old in 2004, Uwiringiyimana (pronounced oo-wee-ring-GEE-yi-mah-nah) and her family fled conflict in their native Congo for a U.N. refugee camp over the border in Burundi. The stay, overcrowded and miserable as the sanctuary was, proved short-lived: on the night of August 13, armed rebels attacked the camp, slaughtering 166 people. Uwiringiyimana’s narrative starts with a terrifying moment-by-moment account of that horrific event. Her ability to summon the chaos and terror is extraordinary, but then, so is she. Plagued by PTSD and severe, recurrent depression in the years since—the U.N. succeeded in bringing the surviving members of her family to the U.S. in 2007—she has emerged as a powerful spokesperson for the plight of the dispossessed. Her account of the family’s first few years in upstate New York, where she was made to feel again unwanted and alien at school, is almost as heartbreaking as the memory of that one world-shattering night. - Copyright 2017 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 04/01/2017 Gr 7 Up—The greatest storytellers connect with readers through universal truths, and Uwiringiyimana tells her own profound story with clarity and honesty. After a heart-pounding cliff-hanger opening, Uwiringiyimana goes back in time to revisit her childhood in Uvira, a city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although occasionally interrupted by bouts of war and subsequent migration, her childhood was rich and fulfilling. However, everything changed during a stay at a refugee camp. The camp at Gatumba was attacked by the Forces for National Liberation, a militant rebel group—a deadly event that would forever alter Uwiringiyimana and her family. The resulting narrative is a powerful look at the family's move to the United States, the challenges of adjusting to a different culture, Uwiringiyimana's painful recognition of her trauma from the massacre, and, finally, the healing she experienced as she took ownership of her emotional needs. Throughout, readers will be able to relate to Uwiringiyimana's adolescent struggles of fitting in and her relationship with her parents as a new adult. The title is a critical piece of literature, contributing to the larger refugee narrative in a way that is complex and nuanced but still accessible for a YA audience. VERDICT This poignant memoir is a must-have for teen collections.—Hannah Ralston, Webster Public Library, NY - Copyright 2017 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.