Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 01/01/2010 A young girl’s garden grows as big as her imagination in Henkes’ latest title that employs what seems to be the elements of his current artistic period: thick outlines; boldly applied, ice-cream parlor colors; and simple declarative sentences. After describing how she helps her mother water and weed, a young girl imagines her own silly and sweet garden filled with eternal flowers that can change color and pattern, chocolate rabbits, seashells that grow new seashells, and a giant jelly-bean bush. (No carrots, though—yuck!) The story’s shift back to the real world is visually and textually subtle and possible to miss, but kids are sure to forget any confusion amid the giggles and dreams the story inspires. While this botanical fantasy may end with a contented sigh instead of an impressed “wow,” it is still an enjoyable tour of an imaginary place and will plant creativity and satisfaction in young minds. - Copyright 2010 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 03/01/2010 PreS-Gr 2— Imagination grows and spreads from the fertile pages of this book to the minds of young readers. Henkes's familiar illustration style invites children into a most unusual garden. It never needs weeding, the flowers are ever-blooming, and colors change just by thinking of them (even into patterns). "In my garden, rabbits wouldn't eat the lettuce because the rabbits would be chocolate and I would eat them." Jelly beans would grow on bushes. Tomatoes would be the size of beach balls, but "carrots would be invisible because I don't like carrots!" Intense pastel colors and soft navy outlines bring the perfect garden to life. Colors splash across the pages, matching the enthusiasm of the text. The vibrancy and size of the artwork make this an excellent choice for groups, large or small. A must for every library.—Carolyn Janssen, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, OH - Copyright 2010 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 04/01/2010 Our young narrator dutifully assists her mother in their backyard garden, but the little girl really prefers her fantasized garden, wherein “the flowers could change color just by my thinking about it” and “if I planted seashells, I’d grow seashells.” She happily describes the myriad wonders of her imagined botanical wonderland, and come nighttime she decides to take a quick chance on fantasy, “planting” a seashell in the soil (“Who knows what might happen?”). This is more an idyll than a story, since there’s not really a plot, but the text evinces a genuine understanding of the pleasures and strains of gardening; the imaginary garden’s details are believable kid adaptations (“And the carrots would be invisible because I don’t like carrots”). Henkes returns here to the illustrative style he employed in A Good Day (BCCB 5/07), big, friendly figures with thick, sturdy borders (in dark blue here, with virtually no black apparent in the images), and there’s a multiplicity of quick small botanical detail in the garden scene. While more contrast could have been visually made between the real and the imagined, there’s a sweet Easter-basket festivity to the grape, cherry, and green-apple tones of the watercolor fantasy that’s bound to appeal to youngsters. Use this to plant the seed for a discussion about the nature of the audience’s imaginary gardens, or just for a fantastical outdoor break during a cold stretch of unpleasant weather. DS - Copyright 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

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