Bound To Stay Bound

Bulletin for the Center... - 03/01/1998 Camilla Cream “was always worried about what other people thought of her.” She secretly loves lima beans and doesn’t want her food fetish to ruin her popularity with her lima-bean-hating friends. Things quickly take an odd turn when Camilla gets a really weird disease. Initially she breaks out in rainbow stripes (but it gets weirder) and finally ends up turning into whatever the people around her suggest (“An Environmental Therapist claimed she could cure Camilla. ‘Close your eyes,’ she said. ‘Breathe deeply, and become one with your room.’ ‘I wish you hadn’t said that,’ Camilla groaned”). Kids will giggle and gasp at the story of peer pressure run amok as one zany scene outdoes the other (Camilla’s transformation into her bedroom, with mattresses for lips, is uniquely strange and very funny). The exaggerated, solid, puppet-like characters who encounter Camilla’s chameleon ways are comically appropriate to this droll take on being true to oneself, and the anticipated cure (lima beans) provides everyone with much-needed relief from Camilla’s Technicolor trauma. - Copyright 1998 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

School Library Journal - 03/01/1998 K-Gr 2--A highly original moral tale acquires mythic proportions when Camilla Cream worries too much about what others think of her and tries desperately to please everyone. First stripes, then stars and stripes, and finally anything anyone suggests (including tree limbs, feathers, and a tail) appear vividly all over her body. The solution: lima beans, loved by Camilla, but disdained for fear they'll promote unpopularity with her classmates. Shannon's exaggerated, surreal, full-color illustrations take advantage of shadow, light, and shifting perspective to show the girl's plight. Bordered pages barely contain the energy of the artwork; close-ups emphasize the remarkable characters that inhabit the tale. Sly humor lurks in the pictures, too. For example, in one double-page spread the Creams are besieged by the media including a crew from station WCKO. Despite probing by doctors and experts, it takes an old woman who was just as plump and sweet as a strawberry to help Camilla discover her true colors. Set in middle-class America, this very funny tale speaks to the challenge many kids face in choosing to act independently.--Carolyn Noah, Central Mass. Regional Library System, Worcester, MA - Copyright 1998 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 01/01/1998 Camilla, who loves lima beans but won't eat them because it's not cool, finds that deferring to others isn't all it's cracked up to be. In fact, her desire to please and be popular causes her some spectacular problems: she suddenly breaks out in stripes, then stars, then turns purple polka-dotty at the behest of a delighted classmate. Her weird mutations, which stymie doctors and send the media into a frenzy, become more and more extreme until she finally blends into the walls of her room--her lips the red-blanketed mattress on her bed, her eyes the paintings on the wall. Will she never be herself again? Shannon's over-the-top art is sensational, an ingenious combination of the concrete and the fantastic that delivers more than enough punch to make up for the somewhat heavy hand behind the story, and as usual, his wonderfully stereotypic characters are unforgettable. The pictures are probably enough to attract young browsers (Camilla in brilliant stripped glory graces the jacket), and the book's irony and wealth of detail may even interest readers in higher grades. Try this for leading into a discussion on being different. (Reviewed January 1 & 15, 1998) - Copyright 1998 Booklist.