Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 02/15/2012 Award-winning comics creator and editor of the celebrated Flight anthologies, Kibuishi offers yet another great anthology geared toward middle-school readers. This collection brings together seven minicomics written and drawn by comics luminaries such as Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman, and Kibuishi himself; Flight contributors Jason Caffoe, Rad Sechrist, Stuart Livingston, and Johane Matte; and comics newcomer Emily Carroll. Each fantastic and fantastical story centers around the theme of boxes and the mysteries that lie within or around them. Always clever and never boring, these diverse stories run the gamut from creepy to sarcastic to witty to cute to Zen to wacky to thoughtful. While the pieces feature different artists and styles, each one is complete and so well composed that the transitions from one to another do not seem jarring or out of place. A great introductory title for young or struggling middle-school readers starting to explore the world of graphic novels. - Copyright 2012 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 03/01/2012 Gr 3–6—A brief anthology edited by the organizer of the "Flight" anthologies (Villard, 2008), these kid-friendly shorts vary in tone from light horror to cheerful adventure. They continue the "Flight" collective tradition of artwork that has a painterly animated quality. While the artists vary in individual style and the stories vary in tone, the thematic connection to a mysterious box is highly effective, perhaps particularly so because of the slim length and tight focus of the stories. A box is a container, and therefore inherently holds potential and revelation. From Pandora to Santa Claus, it has represented the push-pull of compulsion and anxiety. Emily Carroll's opening tale and the cartoony romp by Saymone Phanekham deserve special mention for immediately establishing tone and a reader-friendly world, and the mythological underpinnings of Rad Sechrist's story provide it with a compelling base. Coherent for all its variety, there will be something here for most readers.—Benjamin Russell, Belmont High School, NH - Copyright 2012 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 06/01/2012 Each of the seven graphic short stories (from a total of eight authors) in this collection centers on the mysterious contents of a box. One box contains a sinister wax doll, another attracts the attention of several wizards, two contain mischievous entities, one provides a link to a beloved father who has been killed in battle, one is an alien spaceship, and one, of course, is full of treasure. Each poses a problem for the characters who find it, and those problems range from the creepy to the zany to the ethically and socially conscious in their eventual solutions. Full-color artwork introduces readers to a range of graphic styles: the spooky story of the wax doll who starts to take over the life of the girl who found her is characterized by dark, monochromatic colors and stark interiors, whereas the more zany plot of an alien in over his head on an assignment is energized by bright, complementary colors, chaotic compositions, and exaggerated body eccentricities. Readers new to graphic narrative will find this collection inspirational for their own creative forays, and it carries rich curricular possibilities for teaching the form as well; meanwhile, veteran comics readers, who may recognize contributor names such as Raina Telgemeier and Kibuishi himself, will appreciate the range of styles and entertaining narratives made possible by the thematic connection of a mysterious box. KC - Copyright 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.