Bound To Stay Bound

Other - 01/12/2026 In an intricately wrought, ambitious picture book that recalls works by Chris Van Allsburg and David Wiesner, Caldecott Medalist Cordell creates a humane adventure that unfolds in and around a cozy abode, peppering the telling with a reappearing number that adds mysterious significance. Sent home from school on October 2 with a fever that soon rises to 102 ?F, young George spots a mouse transporting a tiny black object ("Was it... a bean?") and, before retiring to bed, persuades his mother to keep the creature in an old tank. At 1:02 a.m., George is awakened by a cricket guide, and, leaping from his bed in a series of ever-smaller ghostly blue figures, shrinks to "almost a cricket" size himself. He’s led into a wall and through narrow passages, then outdoors to the base of a large oak, the Lilliputian dwelling of a mouse family uncannily like his own, where a young mouse also has a fever. When George learns that their father has not yet returned after heading out to fetch the last bean for a healing 102-bean soup, the boy knows just what to do. Delicate artwork finely worked in multicolor ballpoint pen pulses with warmth and inventiveness across this intriguing pocket-size quest, whose dreamlike narrative gently hints at the line between fantasy and reality. Human characters are portrayed with pale skin. Ages 6-8. Agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio. (Apr.) - Copyright 2026

Booklist - 02/01/2026 *Starred Review* In the newest book by Cordell, whose Wolf in the Snow was the 2018 Caldecott Medal winner, a boy named George is sent home from school with a temperature of 101 degrees. After catching a mouse scurrying across the kitchen floor, his mother tucks George into bed, his temperature now 102. That night (1:02 a.m.), he wakes at the urging of a cricket, and George magically becomes as small as the insect and follows it through passages in the walls to the mouses' home. The mama mouse is making 102-bean soup for her feverish little one, but she lacks one type of bean! Now on a mission, George returns home, finds the father mouse with the special bean, and frees him to return home to his sick mouseling. Exhausted, George climbs into bed and sleeps until the next afternoon (1:02 p.m.), when his mother restores his health with her 102-bean soup. In the narrative and the art, the number 102 recurs throughout this handsome book in different contexts, concluding with George at 102 years old as he recalls telling this tale to his children and grandchildren. His fanciful yet down-to-earth narrative will entrance imaginative children with its combination of everyday life and perilous quest. Each page turn reveals more graceful, cozy illustrations, bringing this story to life with their warmth and expression of emotions. A memorable picture book. - Copyright 2026 Booklist.