Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 05/15/2021 *Starred Review* This book about global inclusivity opens with a series of images of seven children—a nod to the earth’s seven continents—in a verdant setting, all gathering to play around blue balloons. Their group represents different genders, races, sizes, and physical ability, with the accompanying refrain of “Different, the same, we all belong.” Boiger’s stunning, fantastical illustrations, done in pencil and rendered in Photoshop, take readers on a voyage that begins with a wild-haired girl suspended on a swing over the varied Eastern architecture of a desert city. The girl shares her balloon with a boy, providing the trigger for moving from me to we, as Erskine’s rhyming couplets tell us, and then to “you can come, too,” with the art expanding ever outward. After we see the seven children playing hopscotch on rectangles that each carry a symbol for a continent, we zoom out to a flyover on a magic boat. The flight gives a thrilling global perspective—over oceans, deserts, mountains, cities. Love is the core of the voyage, made manifest as the boat, trailing hearts in its wake, sails through an arch composed of the word love in different languages, including Swahili, Somali, and Hebrew. The breathtaking art carries the message throughout. - Copyright 2021 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 06/01/2021 K-Gr 2—This simple yet beautiful book reminds readers that they are not alone. With a boy in a yarmulke praying to his hands, and a child next to him on a prayer rug, bowed in the Islamic manner, the book shows how differences need not be divisive, and that commonalities are everywhere.The story starts out with just one girl, "Me," and expands with one child after another, who have various hair colors and skin tones, until it presents the entire earth, stylized, with pyramids in landscapes right next to Western cities. The book cycles back to the original child: "All kinds of kids, thoughtful and free. Sometimes in groups, sometimes … just me." The illustrations sweepingly display different countries, celebrations, and people. VERDICT Children will find something different every time they read the poem, and feel cherished by the message of openness.—Elizabeth Willoughby, John P. Faber Sch., Dunellen, NJ - Copyright 2021 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.