Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 05/01/1995 K-Gr 3--The irrepressible heroine of Amazing Grace (Dial, 1991) is back in this realistic adventure of the heart. A lover of stories, Grace longs for a family like the ones she reads about in her books. She has a secure and happy home with her ma, her nana, and her cat, but feels she's missed out by not having a father, a brother, and a dog. Her own father moved to Africa after her parents' divorce and began a new family there. One day her mother surprises her with the news that her dad has sent tickets for Grace and Nana to come for a visit. Arriving in The Gambia, she finds the storybook family she's been looking for, but it doesn't seem to include her. `I'm one girl too many. Besides, it's the wrong Ma,' she says. Jatou doesn't fit the model of any of the stepmothers Grace has read about, but she promises her father she'll try to like the woman since they are both so important to him. Through the wonderful visit and getting to know her stepfamily Grace learns to embrace life even when it isn't picture perfect. Binch's sumptuous pencil and watercolor artwork is astonishingly lifelike and expressive in detail. The exotic locale is an extra bonus in this universal story that is validating, uplifting, and bound to please.--Luann Toth, School Library Journal - Copyright 1995 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 04/15/1995 In the first picture book about Grace, Amazing Grace (1991), the wonderful upbeat story is grounded in reality: the determined black girl's dream comes true, and she gets to play the part of Peter Pan in the school play because she's talented and imaginative, and because she practices and practices. Times are tough, people are prejudiced, but she makes it, with the loving support of her hardworking single-parent mother and grandmother. In this sequel another dream comes true, and this time, it's not nearly as convincing. It turns out her absent father has really loved her all the time. What's more, he's a rich man in Africa, and he sends plane tickets for her and her grandmother to come and visit with his new wife and children. When they get to The Gambia, it's like a fairy tale in real life, far beyond the fantasy of any child longing for a father. Grace sulks for a while (she tells herself all the stepmother stories, from Hansel and Gretel to Cinderella , but everyone loves everyone, and soon there's not a sad or frowning face anywhere. Of course it's great to see Africa without the usual primitive and exotic stereotypes, and kids will enjoy finding the cruel fairy-tale stepparent transformed.The text on the jacket's back flap goes on and on about the book's authenticity, reassuring us that the British author and illustrator traveled to The Gambia and took photographs and made sure every single local detail was accurate. That's all very well and good, but unfortunately, it's the story that doesn't ring true. Still, the paintings are glorious, the landscapes filled with light and color, the people strongly individualized, whether Grace is shopping for traditional fabrics, playing with her stepbrother, looking at crocodiles with her loving father, or talking on the telephone with the mother she misses badly. (Reviewed Apr. 15, 1995) - Copyright 1995 Booklist.

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