Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 05/01/2021 A blue-eyed child, tan with flowing blond hair, escapes the dreary, black-and-gray city for a trip to the country, which bursts with blended layers of neon greens, pinks, yellows, and blues. As the child frolics in flower-laden fields, the reader is addressed with questions about their experience with nature, quickly turning abstract. “Have you ever seen a flower using nothing but your nose? . . . what do you see? Raindrops made of honey? The knees of bumblebees? A fancy lady?” The text takes readers on an imaginative journey inside flowers, activating all the senses and gradually thinning the distance between the human body and nature, until the two become one, prompting readers to imagine themselves as the flower, to feel themselves growing and stretching toward the sun. There’s a deep intensity to all the proceedings, rooted in the astounding, dense colored-pencil illustrations and extending to the metaphoric text, which reaches for an odd sort of physical intimacy with the reader. Creative, dazzling, and fearless, Harris’ authorial debut marks an auspicious new chapter to his picture-book career. - Copyright 2021 Booklist.