Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 02/01/2014 It’s a happy day in Mrs. Chanda’s classroom when the students are given identical kits for constructing go-carts to race in a contest. Rafael, who is good at following directions, and his classmate Maya, a dreamer with a practical bent, creatively combine their kits to build a small plane. On contest day, a classmate scoffs at their contraption, but Maya and Rafael’s vehicle soars above the go-carts to win the race. The closing spread offers a preview of their next project: a frog-inspired amphibious craft. Pared down to essentials, the text reads aloud well. In the artwork, the settings and expressive characters are defined by bold, black lines. Most illustrations are bright with colors, though the occasional picture, such as a night scene showing the children silhouetted against the sky, uses black, white, and shades of purplish gray. Like David Gordon’s Your New JETT-Pup Owner’s Manual (2011) and Viviane Schwarz’s Welcome to Your Awesome Robot (2013), this satisfying picture book inspires can-do attitude combining imagination, invention, and engineering. - Copyright 2014 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 02/01/2014 K-Gr 2—When Rafael gets his contest kit to build a go-cart, he is thrilled. He loves to follow instructions, and he wants to win the big race. When he teams up with his neighbor Maya, they start to think outside the box, way outside. By combining Rafael's perfectly made-by-the-directions go-cart with Maya's bird-inspired design, they end up with an airplane. Before they can even respond to the ribbing of their classmates, the race has begun. After a slow start, their entry soars above the traditional go-carts and sails to the finish line, coming in first. The story and illustrations perfectly complement each other. The text captures the discovery of new ideas, teamwork, and the joys of creating. The art brings them all to life with detailed, cartoon digital pictures that show great facial expressions, the fun of building, and the action of the race while leaving plenty of white space so as not to overwhelm. A fun story that will get kids thinking (maybe even outside the box).—Catherine Callegari, Gay-Kimball Library, Troy, NH - Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 04/01/2014 “Rafael had been waiting all year long for the Going Places contest, a chance to build a go-cart, race it . . . and win.” Finally, the big day comes; the kits are distributed and each child heads home to start building. Rafael is pleased to find “a set of precise instructions” and goes about building a go-cart that looks precisely as it should. Classmate Maya, however, has a different idea; rather than following the directions, she opts to literally think outside the box, and Rafael joins her in building a machine that is part go-cart, part airplane, and entirely different from anyone else’s. Inevitably, Maya and Rafael are mocked when they arrive at race day with their unusual contraption . . . until they take off into the sky and easily fly across the finish line first. The story is slight and programmatic, but there is plenty of thematic value: working together, problem-solving, challenging the status quo, and creative thinking are all explored and celebrated in Maya and Rafael’s partnership. While the digitally rendered art, which feature a multicultural cast of kids, lacks the fluidity and vitality of Peter’s previous watercolor work, it’s a cheerful documentation of the events. This has some helpful potential uses, and it could pair effectively with Reynolds’s classic ode to creativity, The Dot, in a storytime focusing on originality. HM - Copyright 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.