Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 03/01/2021 Gr 6 Up—In this haunting collection of poems and portraits, new students at a high school in Outremont, Quebec, share their experience of immigrating to Canada. This collection offers a compelling look at the lives and feelings of student immigrants who originate from countries including Ukraine, Iran, South Korea, Colombia, and the Phillippines. The poems capture worry, excitement, fear, joy, sadness, and the complexities of leaving one life for another. While the experience of leaving and beginning anew is the thread that ties the volume together, the emotions appear in different ways within each poem. Portraits rendered in muted colors accompany the verses, with detailed faces and piercing eyes. Girard explains that the goal of each portrait was to illuminate the light within each student. This book can be taught on its own, highlighted in an art class on portraiture, or paired in the classroom with a novel about the immigrant experience, such as When the Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed, Front Desk by Kelly Yang, or Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario. VERDICT A strong choice. Recommended for middle and high school libraries and classroom collections.—Lia Carruthers, Gill St. Bernard's Sch., Gladstone, NJ - Copyright 2021 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 05/15/2021 “Carry on” can have two meanings: the baggage we bring with us and how we survive. This duality aptly sums up life for high-school immigrants who’ve newly arrived in Quebec, Canada. In this anthology, curated from a writing workshop, 15 students, from countries that include Uruguay, Pakistan, and China, contribute poems about their experiences leaving their homes and resettling in North America. No matter from where they originated, the teens express similar sentiments of painful good-byes and hopeful beginnings, familiar pasts and unknown futures, heartbreak and resilience. As one student from South Korea succinctly explains, “Immigration is heartache / But a lucky break too.” Readers can also view many of the teens’ smiles and pensive gazes in accompanying, full-page portrait paintings in muted, earthy colors. Both the preface and a concluding editor’s note provide more information on the writing project and the students’ views on the complexity of identity. This collection can serve as a model for similar writing endeavors with immigrant communities or simply as a way for recent immigrants to process their own journeys. - Copyright 2021 Booklist.