Bound To Stay Bound

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Booklist - 09/15/2011 Fourteen-year-old Sunni goes to a local museum, Blackhope Tower, to sketch a sixteenth-century painting and finds her classmate Blaise copying the same mysterious painting for his project. As they draw, Sunni’s younger stepbrother walks the path of a labyrinth on the floor and is physically transported into the world of the painting. Sunni and Blaise soon follow him. Traveling through perilous, layered fantasy realms peopled with enigmatic and sometimes treacherous characters, they struggle to survive and wonder if they will ever find their way home. The world of a fictional Renaissance Italian artist-inventor forms the backstory of this unusual fantasy. Although readers may occasionally confuse some of the many secondary characters (an annotated list would have been helpful), the two main characters are appealing, and a strong narrative drive propels the action. Not content with merely suggesting that Sunni and Blaise’s adventures will continue, the book concludes with the prologue and first chapter of a sequel, titled The Crimson Shard. - Copyright 2011 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 11/01/2011 Gr 4–7—This novel presents the intriguing premise that because of a 16tth- century artist's exploration of the magical arts, a person can physically enter one of Corvo's paintings. Sunni, 14, and her younger stepbrother, Dean, accidentally enter one such painting when they visit Blackhope Tower and walk a labyrinth in Mariner's Champer. They are followed by Sunni's friend Blaise, who wants to rescue them. The children travel through various layers, looking for a way back to the real world. The outer layer is completely dead, with no movement or speech, just what the world sees when the painting is viewed. However, as the children travel along, they meet several nefarious characters as well as some helpful ones. No rules apply in the painting's world: a talented artist with the assistance of some sorcery can draw someone's picture, trapping him within it; invisible monsters stalk the labyrinth; boats magically appear to offer aid; and an artist can hide his other magical paintings so that they are inaccessible to villains. The unusual premise is quite involving. Granted, some characters are a bit two-dimensional but many fairly jump off the pages. Recommended for lovers of mythology and monsters, mystery and magic.—B. Allison Gray, Goleta Public Library, CA - Copyright 2011 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

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