Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 03/01/2015 Gr 6 Up—This thrilling collection of travel adventures from this celebrated husband-and-wife, author-illustrator team will appeal to a variety of readers, from aspiring biologists and globe-trotters to those who prefer traipsing the face of the planet from a comfortable chair. Featuring short, conversational pieces, and spectacular photos and vibrant artwork laid out like a journal, this enticing title describes the duo's experiences all over the world. This is a deceptively slim volume, brimming with details of fascinating creatures, locales, and people. The narrative is quite gripping in places, such as in a scene depicting the authors' attempt to outrun a charging lion that was chasing their truck. The book also paints quietly compelling portraits of individuals, such as an old leper woman in Botswana, squatting in the corner of a roofless home of twisted sticks. There is humor, too: in one chapter, an Irish farmer watches the Lewins struggle to pull a wagon out of mud, a task that would have been more easily performed by a horse. The couple's joie de vivre is infectious, and the intimate, familiar tone running through this work underscores the idea that while this planet hosts an incredible variety of humans, animals, and destinations, it's a small world after all. VERDICT A captivating tribute to this glorious orb we call home.—Alyson Low, Fayetteville Public Library, AR - Copyright 2015 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 04/15/2015 This travelogue of exciting adventures from around the globe has been more than 40 years in the making. Veteran husband-and-wife author-illustrator team Ted Lewin and Betsy Lewin have traveled the world side by side, pursuing adventure while practicing their craft. Avoiding leisure resorts and tourist traps, they traveled to some of the most remote places on the globe, and narrative accounts of their travels are collected here. Plenty of close encounters with wildlife are detailed, but their most compelling stories are the human ones, such as their time spent visiting lepers in Botswana, talking to merchants in the spice markets of Morocco, and participating in a shaman ritual in a yurt in Mongolia. Ted and Betsy’s artwork, from quick pencil sketches to fully realized, finished illustrations of their travels, fills each page, along with photos and other ephemera, such as passport stamps and plane tickets. With adventures aplenty across six continents and over four decades, this eye-opening account of the Lewins’ unique experiences will likely mesmerize kids who dream of seeing the world. - Copyright 2015 Booklist.

Bulletin for the Center... - 09/01/2015 In this cross between a travelogue and photo album, kids who cut their literary teeth on the picture books of these author/illustrators now learn about the Lewins’ other life as globe-trotting adventurers. Here the Lewins present brief vignettes from four decades of travel, arranged loosely by continent and then fine-tuned by chronology; almost all the travelers’ tales involve animals. The episodes range in tone from funny (Betsy kisses an adorable mongoose, and later discovers it roots around for seeds in elephant dung) to contemplative (Ted reflects on how Kalahari bushmen’s dependence on “free” water threatens their cultural identity). Some are almost eerily dispassionate, such as the objective observation of a bullfight in southern France, while others, such as a reflection on the age and experience of a centennarian Galápagos tortoise, are particularly empathetic. Ultimately, this is more an uneven series of anecdotes rather than a cohesive whole. Many excursions take the Lewins to regions of political disturbance and outright war, and although the authors convey some sense of the obstacles and fear such travel entails, they offer little context for conflicts. Still, kids who accompany the Lewins on their entire journey will discern an overarching theme: the fraught relationship between human and non-human animals, from culturally sanctioned cruelty to unexpected acts of mercy and conscience. An index is included. EB - Copyright 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.