Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 08/01/2011 Looks like a bummer of a summer for 11-year-old Jack (with a same-name protagonist, it’s tempting to assume that at least some of this novel comes from the author’s life). After discharging his father’s WWII-souvenir Japanese rifle and cutting down his mom’s fledgling cornfield, he gets grounded for the rest of his life or the rest of the summer of 1962, whichever comes first. Jack gets brief reprieves to help an old neighbor write obituaries for the falling-like-flies original residents of Norvelt, a dwindling coal-mining town. Jack makes a tremendously entertaining tour guide and foil for the town’s eccentric citizens, and his warmhearted but lightly antagonistic relationship with his folks makes for some memorable one-upmanship. Gantos, as always, deliver bushels of food for thought and plenty of outright guffaws, though the story gets stuck in neutral for much of the midsection. When things pick up again near the end of the summer, surprise twists and even a quick-dissolve murder mystery arrive to pay off patient readers. Those with a nose for history will be especially pleased. - Copyright 2011 Booklist.

Bulletin for the Center... - 09/01/2011 In what promo copy describes as a mixture of “the entirely true and the wildly fictional,” Jack Gantos returns to a story of his childhood, or something like it. It’s summer vacation, and fictional Jack Gantos is grounded as a result of a problematic and unauthorized encounter with his father’s war souvenir, a Japanese rifle. His only approved offsite activity is his work for elderly Miss Volker, whose arthritis cripples her hands. That’s a much more exciting job than it sounds, however: Miss Volker is the official writer of obituaries for the newspaper and the unofficial historian of the small town of Norvelt, founded as a New Deal community and named for Eleanor Roosevelt; she’s also the medical examiner, and the town’s elderly are dropping at a rate that keeps her plenty busy with deaths as well as obits. There’s actually a murder mystery at the heart of all this, but the story is just as much focused on Jack’s burgeoning interest in history, his relentless susceptibility to nosebleeds, his uneasy seesawing between allying with his mother and his father, and his general capacity for performing weird yet comedic acts (his appearance as the Grim Reaper in a dying old lady’s house is a high-water mark). The book also offers a tribute to the real-life town of Norvelt and the communitarian spirit of its founding, the passing of which is decried by the political firebrand Miss Volker. This doesn’t roar like Gantos’ Joey Pigza tales; instead it’s a more quietly (but still absurdly) funny and insightful account of a kid’s growth, kin to Gantos’ Jack stories, that will stealthily hook even resistant readers into the lure of history. DS - Copyright 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

School Library Journal - 09/01/2011 Gr 5–8—In 1962, Jack accidentally discharges his father's war relic, a Japanese rifle, and is grounded for the summer. When a neighbor's arthritic hands get the best of her, his mother lifts the restriction and volunteers the 12-year-old to be the woman's scribe, writing obituaries for the local newspaper. Business is brisk for Miss Volker, who doubles as town coroner, and Norvelt's elderly females seem to be dropping like flies. Prone to nosebleeds at the least bit of excitement (until Miss Volker cauterizes his nose with old veterinarian equipment), Jack is a hapless and endearing narrator. It is a madcap romp, with the boy at the wheel of Miss Volker's car as they try to figure out if a Hell's Angel motorcyclist has put a curse on the town, or who might have laced Mertie-Jo's Girl Scout cookies with rat poison. The gutsy Miss Volker and her relentless but rebuffed suitor, Mr. Spizz, are comedic characters central to the zany, episodic plot, which contains unsubtle descriptions of mortuary science. Each quirky obituary is infused with a bit of Norvelt's history, providing insightful postwar facts focusing on Eleanor Roosevelt's role in founding the town on principles of sustainable farming and land ownership for the poor. Jack's absorption with history of any kind makes for refreshing asides about John F. Kennedy's rescue of PT-109 during World War II, King Richard II, Francisco Pizarro's conquest of Peru, and more. A fast-paced and witty read.—Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY - Copyright 2011 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

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