Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 04/01/2017 As a young child, Joshua Bell begins making music with cooking pots and rubber bands, but he soon moves up to the violin. Determined to play a difficult piece he loves for his first competition, he works hard to master it, but on stage, he stops playing after making a minor mistake. He pauses, discouraged, and then asks for permission to begin again. He plays it beautifully, soaring with the music. An author’s note reveals that the story is true, commenting that Bell and other professional musicians make mistakes sometimes, and that the key to performing well is focusing on one’s love of the music, rather than attempting to achieve perfection. Concise, precisely worded, and engaging, Stinson’s narrative uses apt imagery, remarking that one young violinist’s precisely played notes “hung limp in the air like wet laundry on a clothesline.” In the expressive illustrations, Petricic uses color to heighten awareness of certain pictorial elements and to make music as vital a presence in the art as it is in the story. An original picture book. - Copyright 2017 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 04/01/2017 PreS-Gr 3—With music in his heart, a little boy named Joshua turns pots into drums, cardboard tubes into a trumpet, and rubber bands into a guitar. His parents buy him a violin, and when he first plays it, a twinkling star appears above his head; when he finally learns other songs, whole stories pour from his violin. Soon, Joshua is begging to learn a difficult piece of music for a competition where the winner performs with "an orchestra!" Magical realism is at its best in this delightful picture book about a boy, his violin, and his love of music. The pencil and watercolor illustrations dance across the page whenever Joshua thinks about or plays music. Colors swirl, loop, and squiggle. When Joshua plays very fast, or prestissimo, the music spills out of the violin in sharp overlaid lines, hiding him behind a cloud of color. The crescendo of the narrative comes when the boy makes an error during the competition and must decide if his mistakes will stop him from playing. This is a fictionalized account of how world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell got his start in music and how he lost and found his confidence. VERDICT An excellent addition to most collections and a great read-aloud for storytimes with a music theme.—Karen Ginman, BookOps: The New York Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library - Copyright 2017 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.