Bound To Stay Bound

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School Library Journal - 12/01/2014 PreS-K—Dinosaurs and fantasies about a perfect pet are both topics loaded with kid appeal, and this picture book, which combines the two, is a real charmer. It is a companion to If I Had a Raptor (Candlewick, 2013) and follows a young boy who imagines life with an exuberant triceratops, who walks on a leash, plays fetch, and learns to sit up, roll over, and play dead. However, where O'Connor's raptor was an occasionally menacing, birdlike creature, his tongue-lolling, tail-wagging triceratops is positively cuddly, and kids will find themselves agreeing with the nameless narrator's assertion that all the work associated with owning a pet "will all be worth it when she runs out to greet me at the end of the day." Rendered with thick-lined pen strokes and bright watercolors, the illustrations have a cartoonlike feel that will invite peals of laughter from the younger set yet are artful, imbued with a sophistication that adults will appreciate: an unhappy looking dinosaur crammed into a tiny tub for a bath or attempting to cuddle up next to her owner at night. The accompanying text is appropriately understated, and pairing it with the over-the-top images makes for a hilarious combination. The young narrator veers into the quirky at times, too, letting the audience know that he would never let his pet chew on any large bones, both because of the risk of choking and because "they might belong to a relative of hers." Prehistoric pet ownership has never been more enchanting.—Mahnaz Dar, School Library Journal - Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 01/01/2015 A little boy wonders out loud about having a triceratops for a pet. The comic conceit is that it would be exactly like having a dog, except on a somewhat more Jurassic scale. The little boy first imagines seeing a triceratops, looking rather like a cuddly puppy, curled up in a pet-store window. Then come the difficulties of pet ownership. For example, the triceratops can only fit its front horn through the doghouse. And in a game of fetch, the triceratops comes back with an entire tree instead of the thrown stick. Humorous details (like the shovel and huge garbage bag the boy lugs on walks) carry the story through the otherwise simple contrast of sizes. The concept feels a bit overdone, even for the smallest children, but the illustrations are warm and cheerful-looking, and the good mood carries through to the very end: “If I had a triceratops, I would be the luckiest kid in the world.” - Copyright 2015 Booklist.

Bulletin for the Center... - 04/01/2015 Our hero and narrator longs for a pet Triceratops, and he knows exactly how to be a responsible pet owner (“I would take her for lots and lots of walks. . . . Playing fetch would be another excellent way for her to get exercise”). He’d forgive small trespasses (like her eating his homework), because “it will all be worth it when she runs out to greet me at the end of the day” and, of course, bowls him over completely. The text is straightforward and largely straight-faced, leaving the humor to the illustrations, and the smooth line and watercolor art picks up the challenge-not so much in style, with its airy wide-open spreads and streamlined focus continuing the realism, but with the comic interpretation of events. The illustrations add a sweet progression to the text, starting with the boy’s seeing the huge orange triceratops sprawled on shavings in a pet-store window; her happy galumphing and destructive romping is classic big-dog stuff but writ huge and reptilian, as Sara the Triceratops fetches a pulled-up tree and high-fives her tiny owner with her humongous foot. The kids for whom this is a straight-up wishful fantasy will revel in the notion, and the book may spark discussion about other technically impossible but delightful pets. DS - Copyright 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

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