Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 12/15/2014 Pampered house-dogs Brownie and Apollo lounge around the house, but their people never come home. After even the water bowls are empty and both dogs have to . . . well, go . . . and still no people come home, they decide they need to leave the house. Once they get outside, they find various clues that young readers will understand—something catastrophic has happened, and all the humans are gone. They encounter a friendly police dog, a clever flea who quotes from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, and, inside the local supermarket, a bulldog and a rat. However, a pack of mean dogs wants the supermarket’s food supply. Using the animals’ points of view allows the Proimoses, father and son, to tell a postapocalyptic story that younger readers can enjoy without seeing too much potentially scary mayhem. The big black-and-white art makes the animals goofy looking enough to keep the story fairly light, and with only a few panels per page, it’s a quick read, too. - Copyright 2014 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 03/01/2015 Gr 2–5—An apocalyptic event has occurred and the only known survivors are a handful of house pets, a rat, and a Zen-wise spider who was trapped inside a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Brownie and Apollo, two dogs, are clueless as to what has happened outside their home and so set about their normal routine, first waking up and arguing over why Apollo gets to sleep on the couch, followed by Brownie looking for something to eat. After worrying about when their people will return home, the friends set out to search for food, only to walk out amid scenes of chaos and destruction, realizing that, in fact, all of the people have gone. Their search leads them to an abandoned grocery store where they make allies and come face-to-face with a rival pack who wants to overtake the store. The story is broken into 30 short, dialogue-heavy scenes. The paneled artwork has a distinctly hand-drawn quality and is printed in grayscale. This unpolished look at times makes it difficult to distinguish among characters. Despite it being the end of the world, the story feels as though it's missing an overall sense of urgency. As a result, readers may lose the gravity of the circumstances these characters live in or they may struggle to push through sets of uneventful scenes waiting for something to happen. VERDICT Though it has some quirky humorous moments, this dystopian graphic novel may struggle to find mass appeal with readers.—Matthew C. Winner, Ducketts Lane Elementary School, Elkridge, MD - Copyright 2015 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 04/01/2015 It’s apparently the apocalypse outside, in this humorously dystopian graphic novel, but the big goofy mutt and the little yappy dog inside the house are mostly concerned that their people haven’t come home to feed them. They head out into the world to find a blasted landscape and a few other dogs, one of whom points them to the grocery store (“Building full of food!”). Once there, they join forces with the resident bulldog and gorge themselves silly; the three, aided by a local rat and a tick who’s been reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, then take on a horde of invaders who seek to claim the territory. This is typical Proimos (Proimoi?) in its affable weirdness and loopy, slightly edgy cartoonish artwork; though occasional scenes are on the dark side, the black and white illustrations have a countercultural feel that adds extra appeal. The dogs’ dialogue is snappy, with fine comic contrast as the dopier dog starts passing on the tick’s sophisticated observations from Sun Tzu. The action transpires in brief demarcated scenes, making this loopy story perfect for reluctant readers who need frequent breaks. The plot trickles to a stop rather than ending with a bang, but it’s clearly setting up for a sequel, so the forthcoming Apocalypse Meow Meow should satisfy kids desperate to know what happens next. DS - Copyright 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

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