Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 11/01/2022 *Starred Review* It’s wet and cold outside. Alice is tired of being bundled up in clothes, so, in protest, she digs a sleeveless dress out of a drawer and wishes she could be somewhere sunny. As if on command, the pages of a book flutter. The next illustration shows Alice’s hands holding the book, and she is now inside of it! Her dress is covered in words, as if made from a book itself. The birds on the page invite her to visit. As she joins them, her dress takes on the lush-green color of the background. Moving through the pages, her clothes change to orange for the camels’ desert and turquoise in the fishes’ underwater home. Intricate illustrations, painted in vibrant gouache, convey each location in a new color palette. A small rabbit is tucked into each illustration, inviting children to seek and find. Alice enjoys exploring, but on each page something is not quite right—it's either too wet, dusty, cold, lonely, and so on. When she finds a page showing a cozy kitchen, she realizes it looks like home. Dumplings are ready for dinner, and Alice happily rejoins her family. Perhaps in homage to other notable children’s books, this Alice’s adventure takes readers through an imaginative wonderland and gets them home in time for a Sendakian supper, which is still hot. - Copyright 2022 Booklist.

Booklist - 11/01/2022 *Starred Review* It’s wet and cold outside. Alice is tired of being bundled up in clothes, so, in protest, she digs a sleeveless dress out of a drawer and wishes she could be somewhere sunny. As if on command, the pages of a book flutter. The next illustration shows Alice’s hands holding the book, and she is now inside of it! Her dress is covered in words, as if made from a book itself. The birds on the page invite her to visit. As she joins them, her dress takes on the lush-green color of the background. Moving through the pages, her clothes change to orange for the camels’ desert and turquoise in the fishes’ underwater home. Intricate illustrations, painted in vibrant gouache, convey each location in a new color palette. A small rabbit is tucked into each illustration, inviting children to seek and find. Alice enjoys exploring, but on each page something is not quite right—it's either too wet, dusty, cold, lonely, and so on. When she finds a page showing a cozy kitchen, she realizes it looks like home. Dumplings are ready for dinner, and Alice happily rejoins her family. Perhaps in homage to other notable children’s books, this Alice’s adventure takes readers through an imaginative wonderland and gets them home in time for a Sendakian supper, which is still hot. - Copyright 2022 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 03/17/2023 PreS-Gr 2—In this vibrant celebration of reading, young Alice is tired of being cooped up at home on a dreary winter day and finds herself swept into the pages of a storybook for a grand adventure. The book takes her from a lush tropical rainforest to a deep sea dive to an expansive moonlit sky. Though each setting is wondrously tantalizing, none is exactly right, and Alice ends up back home with her parents just in time for a cozy dinner. Lin and Messner's inspired collaboration pays homage to classic children's literature with visual references to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and narrative themes evoking Where the Wild Things Are while simultaneously delivering an experience that is fresh and new. Richly detailed illustrations play with perspective and offer clever recurring motifs to delight readers each time they revisit the story. Alice's journey into and out of a book captures the very essence of what it means to be a reader, reveling in the thrill of exploration, the power of imagination, and the comforting familiarity of home. This title shines as a positive representation of Asian American culture: Alice and her parents are depicted as Asian American, and their home decor incorporates Asian folklore and traditions such as the moon rabbit and a Lunar New Year decoration on the front door. VERDICT A first purchase for picture book collections, this title will be a hit at story hours and for and classroom read-alouds, as well as a treasure for book lovers of all ages.—Allison Tran - Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.