Bound To Stay Bound

Bulletin for the Center... - 07/01/2013 Narrator Derek Lamb, a fifth-grader whose father has been flying an Apache helicopter in Afghanistan for half of Derek’s life, is having a particularly rough year. Besides his usual classroom problems, which derive from his glib mouth and wandering mind, he finds himself suddenly tormented by Budgie, who used to be his best friend. Mom tells Derek to be the bigger man in the face of the bullying, but in the heat of the moment, Derek forgets that advice and plays right into the hands of Budgie and their drama-thirsty classmates. There’s a ray of hope for social redemption when Derek is cast in the school play, but before he makes his stage debut, his mother lapses into a profound depression, his aunt Josie arrives to take household control, and Derek only finds out through a television newscast that his father has been shot down, gone missing, and finally confirmed dead. Never a paragon of self-control, Derek focuses his rage into retaliation against Budgie. Their backstage confrontation, which spills out into a seriocomic onstage smackdown, actually helps bring the extent of the bullying problem to adult attention, to clear the air between the two ex-buddies, and to redirect Derek’s energy to pulling himself and Mom through this dark time. Debut novelist Fleming ably limns Derek’s manic, Joey Pigza–styled interior life with a light hand, capturing the humorous aspects of the boy’s self-perpetuating problems. Thoughtful readers, though, will recognize that Derek’s been dealt a tough hand to play, and they may even pause to wonder whether any of their own goofy classmates are privately burdened. EB - Copyright 2013 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

School Library Journal - 07/01/2013 Gr 5–8—It's been more than eight months since Derek, 11, has seen his dad, a soldier who flies Apache helicopters and is stationed in Afghanistan for another tour. They keep in touch through letters that Derek keeps in his dad's old school lunch box. He's read them so often he knows exactly which one to grab for each of his moods. Derek is a good-hearted kid who just naturally attracts trouble-he doesn't mean to, but he's always in the wrong place at the wrong time and often the victim. He's also impulsive and has a hard time staying focused, which adds to his problems. Budgie, who vacillates between being a friend and being a real pain, has something going on with him, but what it is Derek can't figure out. He and his mom have a loving relationship and are trying their best to take care of each other while his dad is away. Derek's life, although complicated, is not too bad, until the day he sees his dad on the news and his world falls apart. Fleming has done a superb job of not only making the characters believable, but also of keeping an underlying tension in the story. Children with parents who are deployed will find a kindred soul in Derek, and other readers will come to better understand what it's like for them.—Nancy P. Reeder, Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, Columbia, SC - Copyright 2013 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.