Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 05/24/2024 Gr 4–6—Across five short stories, readers follow the day-to-day adventures of a young boy named K. K is surrounded by adults who don't seem to understand children—from what they eat for breakfast (certainly not "sardines swimming in oil") to the accidents that can disrupt the best laid plans. In each chapter, K gets in trouble for something he didn't do or that was out of his control, such as a search for his teacher's missing glasses, leading to him being abandoned by his class at a train station. Clement's use of soft colors, with an emphasis on browns and greys, creates a bleak setting that adds to the Kafka inspirations drizzled through each short tale. While most young readers won't recognize the Kafka connections, they will recognize K's inability to please the adults around him. The art is painted through a child's eyes, with K surrounded by tall, endless file cabinets and spaces that just seem more empty and dire-seeming as time drags on. The strange humor and often advanced vocabulary, such as "interminable" and "intransigent," will remind readers of Lemony Snicket. VERDICT While not every young reader will recognize the nods to Kafka, this book certainly will have its fans.—Annamarie Carlson - Copyright 2024 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 02/01/2024 *Starred Review* The works of Franz Kafka might seem a poor fit for young readers, but Clement’s debut graphic novel makes a good case that this age group could find great relevance, at least, in those things we’ve come to call “Kafkaesque.” It’s the uncommon child who doesn’t occasionally see the world filled with the sinister martinets of a vast, indecipherable power, whether that power is family, school, society, or even fate itself. So, as our young protagonist, K, makes his way through several vignettes—punished at school for an infraction he didn’t commit, hauled away by police for trying to follow proper directions, foiled in his effort to procure a holiday fish for his mother—readers will find it uncomfortably easy to connect, though many specific references to Kafka's stories will surely be lost on them. Tone is crucial here, and Clement manages to adroitly balance funny ha ha and funny strange, both in situations and visuals. His Richard Sala–like depictions of bustling late-nineteenth-century Prague, the isolation of huge, empty rooms, and the ever-uneasy face of K himself touch the amusing, the human, and the uncanny all at once. Definitely not for everyone, but a truly unique effort that will become a deeply resonant touchstone for anyone who recognizes in it the occasional strangeness of their world. - Copyright 2024 Booklist.