Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 12/15/2018 Growing up in Victorian England, Isabella Bird was plagued by aches and pains, though she loved reading letters from uncles in India and news reports about missions in Africa. As a young lady, her malaise worsened until her doctor recommended a sea voyage. After arriving in Nova Scotia, she traveled in North America and returned home to write An Englishwoman in America (1856), the first of many books that charmed readers with her descriptions of faraway places and her exciting adventures while traveling around the world. From a sickly child, Bird grew into a strong woman who escaped the social boundaries of her upbringing. Mortensen distills a very full life into a condensed but readable narrative for primary-grade children. The digital illustrations feature simplified forms, expressive figure drawing, and subtle use of color. Illustrated with a photo of Bird, an appended author’s note offers more details of her life as a traveler, writer, and photographer. Children who hope to forge their own paths can take heart from this picture-book biography. - Copyright 2018 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 02/01/2019 Gr 2–5—This picture book biography of Isabella Bird describes her as "a wild vine stuck in a too-small pot," a fitting description for an inquisitive young woman who lived during the Victorian era. The text discusses Bird's health problems as a small child and how curiosity about the world she saw from the back of her father's horse helped her to "forget about her aches and pains." Her eventual journeys around the world led to fame for her travel books and even membership as the first woman in London's Royal Geographic Society. Digital illustrations show details of the era's fashions, as well as scenes from Bird's adventures, like climbing up Kilauea. A photo of Bird accompanies the author's note. There is also a time line, bibliography, and a source list for all the quotations from Bird's writing that are incorporated into the book. This title would be a good addition to a unit on groundbreaking women, or for a discussion of societal expectations then and now. VERDICT An engaging biography for intermediate grades.—Suzanne Costner, Fairview Elementary School, Maryville, TN - Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.