Bound To Stay Bound

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Booklist - 07/01/2017 *Starred Review* This cheerful picture book opens on a rainy Saturday morning. While her dad’s snoring and her brother’s watching TV, an African American girl walks down to the library. Looking around, she spies old friends (Winnie the Pooh, Sleeping Beauty, Madeline, the Cat in the Hat, etc.), who all want to go home with her. Soon a happy crowd of fictional characters is parading down the street. On the wordless last page, the girl’s on her bed, reading contently beside Winnie the Pooh. Written in 1989, with upbeat lyrics, natural-sounding rhymes, and a catchy tune, the song “The Library Song” creates a surprisingly good text for a picture book. The words can be read aloud easily, as the cadence is evident when the words are spoken, but the effect is more magical when the words are sung (the tune is readily available online). Groenink, the illustrator of Evan Kuhlman’s Hank’s Big Day (2016), brings the song to life on the page through his pleasing pencil-and-digital artwork. From the rainy-village street scene to the library interiors to the child’s cozy bedroom, the pictures are well structured and full of intriguing details for children to find and enjoy. Fun for story hours and satisfying for reading one-on-one. - Copyright 2017 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 08/01/2017 PreS-Gr 2—This picture book uses the lyrics of "The Library Song" as text, then adds digital and pencil illustrations to share a young African American girl's extraordinary visit to her neighborhood public library. The pictures have a nostalgic feel, with the girl in a dress and large round glasses, the white female librarian wearing heels, skirt, jacket, and ribbon-tied blouse, and the library itself full of tall dark wooden shelves. With the card catalogue, date-due stamps, and absence of computers, the setting feels old-fashioned. The point of the song and the story is to introduce a string of beloved book characters, such as Winnie-the-Pooh, Curious George, Madeline, the Cat in the Hat, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and others. Adults will appreciate the mention of authors such as Roald Dahl and Philip Pullman, referenced on book spines. As the girl happily reads away the rainy morning, more and more characters sing and dance around the library, inviting all the library patrons to join in. The "shushing librarian" stereotype humorously is turned around when the girl asks the librarian to stop singing so that the girl can read in peace. VERDICT Although librarians will want to offer other resources in addition to the ones mentioned, this title is a fun read-aloud that will familiarize young children with the library.—Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA - Copyright 2017 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

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