Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 11/01/2014 Gr 4–6—Iris is starting sixth grade in a new school in Oregon-new house, new people, new life. Her parents want to distract her from the recent death of her best friend in California. The incessant rain echoes her state of mind and she turns away from potential friends, seeking instead someone she can barely tolerate-so that she must only endure minimal interaction. His name is Boris, and while he is obviously an outcast, Iris prefers to be on the outskirts right now. Her brain is grappling with unanswerable questions-is the essence of Sarah out there somewhere? Would Sarah's spirit follow her to her new house? Iris explores possible avenues to find the answers-priests, a psychic, and an experiment with electronic voice phenomena. Iris's relationship with Boris transmutes into a real friendship as she expands her horizons to include him and even confide in him. Boris, meanwhile, enjoys the first real friendship he has had in a long time. This is a realistic view of grief, with particular emphasis on the agonizing longing to know if a lost loved one is truly out there somewhere. Iris's stay-at-home dad fills the story with great flavors and textures-from the baby chicks he hatches to his homemade bread, giving the story a cozy touch despite Iris's impossible quest for answers. Recommended for larger collections and anywhere a new title on grieving is needed.—Kathy Cherniavsky, Ridgefield Library, CT - Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 11/15/2014 *Starred Review* Sixth-grader Iris hates her new home in rainy Corvallis, Oregon. The move from Southern California was ostensibly because of her mother’s new job. But another compelling motivation was the accidental death of Iris’ best friend, a tragedy that she witnessed. Iris finally makes a friend in Corvallis: Boris, a quirky nerd who is, just barely, better than nothing. Then Iris learns something astounding about Boris. He was not expected to live when he was born, but a group of nuns, dedicated to making Pope Paul a saint, prayed to him, and Boris was cured. An Italian committee from the Vatican is headed to Oregon to make sure that Boris’ case can be counted as a miracle. This information intrigues Iris. Do miracles really happen? Who gets a miracle and who decides? And perhaps Iris’ sense that Sarah is still around her may be the beginning of a miracle, if Iris can only make contact. The atmospherically dull, rain-swept landscape becomes almost another character as Iris tries to push away the fog, both literal and mental. She asks the questions that many children would ask in this circumstance, and the book puts a smart circle of caring adults to help her find answers. But it is her realistic relationship with the matter-of-fact Boris, a most unlikely miracle, that will catch readers and help pull them toward seeking answers of their own for the story’s very large questions. - Copyright 2014 Booklist.

Bulletin for the Center... - 02/01/2015 Moving from sunny California to rainy Oregon is bad enough for eleven-year-old Iris, but her real grief is for the loss of her best friend, Sarah, who died in an accident only a few months ago. She defaults into friendship with geeky Boris, who loves Magic: The Gathering and lecturing on obscure subjects, and she finds him a surprisingly sympathetic partner in her investigations into ways to communicate with lost loved ones. She’s even more intrigued to discover that Boris is being considered a possible miracle by the Catholic Church, having recovered as an infant from birth defects that should have prevented him from surviving; she thinks that learning more about his miracle may help her better understand why Sarah died when Iris didn’t (“Did the universe love Sarah less than Iris?”). Arnold makes Iris a highly compelling protagonist, managing to capture her resentment and anger while keeping her sympathetic as well as interesting. Her friendship with Boris evolves believably from a blend of annoyance and resignation to genuine appreciation, and her epistemological journey is realistically knotty and disappointing as adult attempts at wisdom repeatedly miss the mark (“It seemed to her that Father Santorno’s response was the worst answer she had ever heard”). Iris’ grief for Sarah is unusually well captured, touching on the huge importance of the best friend relationship and the amputation felt after such a loss. This is therefore a tender yet smart story that will resonate with readers who work through their emotions by brain as well as heart. DS - Copyright 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Loading...