Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 03/15/2009 Twelve-year-old Josh LeBlanc has moved a lot in his life; his father is a minor league pitcher hoping to make it to the majors. After his dad is abruptly dumped by his Triple-A team, Josh realizes that he has a chance to stay in one town and play baseball on his school team. His father, however, has other plans, signing Josh up for a traveling team, led by an intense and sometimes brutal coach. Josh eventually discovers that his coach’s winning formula includes handing out steroids. With the help of Jaden, a school newspaper reporter, he manages to take a photograph of the coach receiving steroids behind a hospital. Green delivers a fast-paced story, told in short chapters that build to the exciting climax. He also doesn’t sanitize the rough world of the locker room, showing the intimidation that often accompanies young people’s sports. Add this to other novels that feature the temptations of steroids for young athletes, including Carl Deuker’s Gym Candy (2007) and John Coy’s Crackback (2005). - Copyright 2009 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 04/01/2009 Gr 5–7— Twelve-year-old Josh LeBlanc's father has come to the end of a baseball career that never made it to the majors. Josh is also a talented player, and the family's dreams of glory settle on him. His angry, controlling father pulls him off the middle school team to have him try out for a traveling youth team sponsored by a suspicious character named Rocky Valentine, who is also Mr. LeBlanc's new employer. While the competition is fierce, Josh eventually makes the team, but his doubts about Rocky Valentine continue to grow. With the help of a girl he likes, aspiring journalist Jaden Neidermeyer, Josh uncovers evidence that Rocky is dealing in illegal steroids. It appears that Jaden's father, a doctor, is supplying Rocky with the drugs, but eventually everything is straightened out. Rocky is apprehended, Dr. Neidermeyer is cleared, and, in a deus ex machina, a Nike Youth Baseball representative shows up out of the blue and offers to sponsor Josh's team, to put his dad on the payroll, and to sign Josh up to appear in Nike ads. While the resolution might strike even less-sophisticated readers as wildly implausible, issues of peer and family pressure are well handled, and the short, punchy chapters and crisp dialogue are likely to hold the attention of young baseball fans.—Richard Luzer, Fair Haven Union High School, VT - Copyright 2009 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

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