Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 02/01/2011 *Starred Review* When we last saw Miss Penelope Lumley, governess to three wolflike children (but making tremendous strides!), she was trying to recoup after the Incorrigibles had brought Lord and Lady Ashton’s Christmas ball to a disastrous halt. Now home renovations are needed, so the Ashton household is on the move to London, where Lady Ashton hopes she will be the belle of British society, and Penelope looks forward to civilizing the Incorrigibles further with trips to the theater and museums. But the undercurrent of “something wicked this way comes” and the signs of impending trouble for both governess and charges make the air here thick with (dreadful!) possibilities. Of course, there are some happier times in the city, too, as Penelope meets up with her beloved headmistress from the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females and finds a new friend in a helpful, unemployed playwright. Questions about the children’s backgrounds, Penelope’s connections to them, and Lord Ashton’s own wolfish behavior set the stage for the next act of this most excellent adventure, the follow-up to The Mysterious Howling (2010). Interior illustrations not seen, but no doubt they’ll be most satisfactory. - Copyright 2011 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 03/01/2011 Gr 3–6—The Incorrigibles, three feral children discovered and adopted by the ridiculously rich Lord Ashton, are back in another series of uproarious escapades. While Ashton Place is being repaired after the disastrous Christmas party at the conclusion of The Mysterious Howling (HarperCollins, 2010), Cassiopeia, Beowulf, and Alexander head for London, under the care of their unflappable 15-year-old governess, Miss Penelope Lumley. Mysterious happenings thwart Miss Lumley's plans for a proper and edifying tour of the city, including a fortune-teller who issues a strange warning to the children, a guidebook that leads them to a hidden gallery in the British Museum, and Lord Ashton's twitching behavior during a full moon. There is genuine humor in Penelope's unruffled attempts to educate and tame her charges, and fun in the wordplay and the use of delicious sounding archaic words. The characterization and plotting are true to an over-the-top parody of a Victorian melodrama as one outlandish adventure after another climaxes in a riotous spoof of a Gilbert & Sullivan Operetta gone bad. The narrator occasionally addresses readers directly with asides and explanations on topics such as holiday fatigue and the Heimlich maneuver, which seems oddly discordant in the distinctly Victorian-style narrative. And while a few new twists are introduced here, the fact that so little is resolved will leave readers wishing for just a bit more. Still, the endearing Incorrigibles and their indefatigable governess are engaging characters, and fans of the first book will be happy to go along for the madcap ride.—Caroline Ward, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT - Copyright 2011 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 05/01/2011 The three wolf-raised children discovered on the Ashton estate and taken under Lord Ashton’s protection are now thriving, both socially and academically, under the affectionate discipline of their inestimable young governess, Penelope Lumley. As the Ashton manor house is now in need of repair following the unpleasantness at the recent Christmas party (refer, gentle reader, to Book One: The Howling, BCCB 4/10), the entire household has shifted to opulent, albeit temporary, quarters in London—the perfect setting, according to Penelope, in which to expand the children’s cultural horizons. Her guidebook, however, is eccentric in its scope and directions; new acquaintances warn that the children are in danger; Lord Ashton is as preoccupied as ever with concerns about the date of each full moon; and Miss Mortimer, headmistress of Penelope’s academy, is reluctant to discuss with her former star student all that she knows concerning the Lumley family. Readers of Wood’s previous novel are already alert to the likelihood of some enigmatic, werewolfish connection between Lord Ashton and the children, and the current entry strongly suggests that Penelope is tied into all this as well. The supernaturally tinged mystery is taking its own sweet time to unravel, but that will not trouble those who are by now firmly beguiled and amused by the mock formality of Wood’s tone, Penelope’s unflappability at the children’s lapses into lupine behavior, and the tongue-in-cheek life lessons and vocabulary coaching that open each chapter. Captioned full-page line-and-wash illustrations that marry an old-fashioned design with a contemporary perkiness of figure appear throughout. EB - Copyright 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.