Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 05/01/2018 *Starred Review* Sunny is one of the best runners you have ever seen. But the problem, see, is that he doesn’t want to run. His mother was a runner, and after she died giving birth to him, his father Darryl decided that Sunny would run to carry on the legacy. But if you carry anything long enough, you begin to stagger under its weight. What Sunny really wants to do is dance. He and his homeschool teacher—a colored-haired, tattooed woman named Aurelia—dance for the cancer ward patrons at a local hospital. Coach even lets him quit running and starts giving him one-on-one discus lessons, which feels a lot like dancing. But Darryl thinks Sunny is betraying his mother’s memory. Reynolds again uses his entrancing grasp of voice to pull readers into the heartbreaking world of the Track series. Sunny’s voice is deliberately more scattered and onomatopoetic than the series’ prior narrators, and there’s a musicality to the text, with words like tickboom and hunger-growl. As with Ghost (2016) and Patina (2017), this book functions equally well as a standalone—in this case, a boy with rhythm flowing deeply through his bones—while also continuing to deepen the world of this inner-city middle-school track team. This series continues to provide beautiful opportunities for discussion about viewpoint, privilege, loss, diversity of experience, and exactly how much we don’t know about those around us.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Reynolds is on a run almost unparalleled in YA, and this standout series will continue to be in demand. - Copyright 2018 Booklist.