Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 01/01/2023 Gr 1–4—Rosetta Tharpe was an American singer and guitarist who rose up in gospel music and broke into the mainstream of American music in the 1930s and 1940s. She influenced many well-known musicians, including Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Little Richard, and Aretha Franklin. Told in free verse, this picture book biography chronicles her life, from her upbringing in rural Cotton Plant, AK, to accompanying her preacher mother to Chicago, to making a life for herself in New York City. She sang in churches and nightclubs, including the Cotton Club and the Apollo in Harlem. Christie's vibrant illustrations bring the story to life with movement and punch, matching Tharpe's personality. A time line in the back matter further fleshes out her personal life and career. VERDICT A fresh and female addition to the music legend canon, just in time for Black History Month displays. Purchase where picture book biographies, especially those about musicians/rock history, circulate well.—Jennifer Noonan - Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 02/15/2023 *Starred Review* A little girl, a big instrument, and plenty of determination as she grows to meet musical challenges are portrayed through a stellar combination of foot-stomping prose and bold illustrations in this picture-book biography of rock-and-roll pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Depicting the icon in dresses of pastels and lace, puffy shouldered, with her guitar’s round contours set against backgrounds of rounded arcades and scallops, Coretta Scott King Honoree Gregory visually emphasizes the fact that Tharpe’s accomplishments were as a female forebear to a musical genre typically associated with men. Yet this child growing up in the early part of the twentieth century with “Music in your air, / in your hair, / in your bones . . .” emerged as an inspiration to some of the most iconic early rock sensations—Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Elvis, Johnny Cash. Bolden keeps the music foremost in readers’ minds as she tracks Tharpe’s life spent singing in fields, churches, and concert halls, a chorus of “Rock, Rosetta, rock! Roll, Rosetta, roll!” following her. A time line and author’s notes fill out the story for curious and inspired older readers, who might even be driven to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, where Tharpe is enshrined as an “Early Influence.” Terrific for all collections that want to encourage the musically inclined and highlight innovative pioneers. - Copyright 2023 Booklist.