Bound To Stay Bound

Bulletin for the Center... - 01/01/2008 The unnamed narrator of this coming-of-age tale is twelve years old and safely ensconced in her Queens neighborhood when a new girl shows up and makes the narrator and her best friend, Neeka, see things in a new light. Calling herself D Foster because she has grown up in foster care, the new girl comes to represent for the other two some part of themselves that they’ve never quite understood—the part that wants to wander, the part that feels like there is a world out there beyond their block that might also be a home. The three girls connect through double dutch, hanging out, and Tupac Shakur, with whom D identifies at a deep level. Because of D and Tupac, the girls begin to wonder what their Big Purpose is, and Shakur becomes a sort of beacon around which the entire neighborhood, mothers included, takes soundings with regard to their future. D floats in and out of their lives—lives that are already full of family highs and lows, like Neeka’s brother’s scholarship to Georgetown, the narrator’s absent father, and Neeka’s other brother’s incarceration—yet both girls feel as though D fills in their gaps while preserving her own secrets. Like Woodson’s most recent Feathers (BCCB 4/07), this is light on plot points and heavy on a kind of self-reflection tinged with melancholy; this narrator and the friends and folks in her neighborhood, however, are much more grounded and realistic in both context and language. The narrator’s thoughts on D’s place in her life—part best friend, part enigma—offer an insightful reminder of the way we find bits of ourselves in others, and the way our identities are a tapestry of the people and places we love, even if we don’t entirely understand them. KC - Copyright 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

School Library Journal - 04/01/2008 Gr 6-10-D Foster, Neeka, and an unnamed narrator grow from being 11 to 13 with Tupac Shakur's music, shootings, and legal troubles as the backdrop. Neeka and the narrator have lived on the same block forever and are like sisters, but foster child D shows up during the summer of 1994, while she is out "roaming." D immediately finds a place in the heart of the other girls, and the "Three the Hard Way" bond over their love of Tupac's music. It seems especially relevant to D, who sees truth in his lyrics, having experienced the hard life herself in group homes and with multiple foster families. Woodson's spare, poetic, language and realistic Queens, NY, street vernacular reveal a time and a relationship, each chapter a vignette depicting an event in the lives of the girls and evoking mood more than telling a story. In this urban setting, there are, refreshingly, caring adults and children playing on the street instead of drug dealers on every corner. Readers are right on the block with bossy mothers, rope-jumping girls, and chess-playing elders. With Tupac's name and picture on the cover, this slim volume will immediately appeal to teens, and the emotions and high-quality writing make it a book well worth recommending. By the end, readers realize that, along with the girls, they don't really know D at all. As she says, "I came on this street and y'all became my friends. That's the D puzzle." And readers will find it a puzzle well worth their time.-Kelly Vikstrom, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, MD Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information. - Copyright 2008 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 02/01/2008 “The summer before D Foster’s real mama came and took her away, Tupac wasn’t dead yet.” From this first line in her quiet, powerful novel, Woodson cycles backward through the events that lead to dual tragedies: a friend’s departure and a hero’s death. In a close-knit African American neighborhood in Queens, New York, the unnamed narrator lives across from her best friend, Neeka. Then D Foster wanders onto the block, and the three 11-year-old girls quickly become inseparable. Because readers know from the start where the plot is headed, the characters and the community form the focus here. A subplot about Neeka’s older brother, a gay man serving prison time after being framed for a hate crime, sometimes threatens to overwhelm the girls’ story. But Woodson balances the plotlines with subtle details, authentic language, and rich development. Beautifully capturing the girls’ passage from childhood to adolescence, this is a memorable, affecting novel about the sustaining power of love and friendship and each girl’s developing faith in her own “Big Purpose.” - Copyright 2008 Booklist.