Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 03/01/2020 “When our new baby arrived, he had velvety soft skin and big brown eyes. He ate twigs and weeds.” Unconditional acceptance forms the central theme in this droll tale of a doting (human) family that coos over its newest (hooved!) member in the maternity ward and then wheels him home to feed, dress, and fuss over. Moosie does grow, though, as moose do, and so when he becomes too big for the house, they venture into the wilderness to hook him up with a four-legged friend. (The first postcard arrives a week later.) Though the startled expressions of neighbors and passersby in Ercolini’s bright, neatly drawn cartoon illustrations turn into a sort of running joke, most everyone from maternity ward staff to the teachers and children in school just take Moosie in stride. It doesn’t require much insight to see Moosie as a stand-in for any child with physical (or other) differences, but rather than exploit the metaphor, Rosoff and the illustrator are content to stop with the very first step of all. - Copyright 2020 Booklist.