Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 08/08/2023 In a tale that owes much to The Mysterious Benedict Society (and certain other classics), de la Cruz sends eight particularly talented middle-schoolers selected in a nationwide contest to a science center built in the remote Montana mountains by “the incredibly mysterious and blindingly brilliant” inventor Onasander Octagon. There they are pitched into bonding adventures related by an unnamed narrator, who trots in to lead the visitors on a grand tour while genially deflecting questions and posing a series of challenges on the way to enlisting their help to hide a batch of a powerful, reality-destroying element called Impossibilium. Diverse in race, culture, and family situation, the young folk, behind reluctant brainiac leader Edwin, throw off years of being variously ostracized, bullied, and coddled to survive fire, flood, piranhas, ninjas, a siren (of the singing sort), and other trials by learning how to be friends and teammates—and, not to be sneezed at, discovering that besides being smart or at least athletic, they all have actual superpowers. - Copyright 2023 Booklist.