Bound To Stay Bound

Bulletin for the Center... - 03/01/2014 A cry in a building-site portable toilet leads thirteen-year-old Lionel and his friend Anisa to the discovery of an abandoned newborn baby. Their swift delivery of the baby girl to the hospital leads to initial suspicion (especially by Anisa’s mother) that they are the baby’s parents themselves; even after that misunderstanding is cleared up, Anisa’s mother forbids Anisa to associate with Lionel. Meanwhile, Lionel, himself abandoned by his father, fears that Baby Doe will be hurt by a similar loss, so he schemes to bring her home with him. Realizing baby supplies cost money, a rare commodity around his house, he reluctantly agrees to take on some work for a local drug dealer, promising himself it will be a one-time job. Vigilante returns here to the same minority-dominated Brooklyn neighborhood (Lionel and Anisa are Latino) and group of kids featured in The Trouble with Half a Moon (BCCB 1/11) and offers a similar straightforward and accessible narrative style. The plot unfortunately spirals out of control with a multitude of final tragedies, and the unlikely resolution to the Baby Doe story (the baby’s teenaged mother is identified and gets to take her baby home) is hardly as happy as the book paints it. However, Vigilante writes about tough subjects with an engaging clarity and a tender touch, making this story a gentle younger version of urban lit that might also appeal to reluctant older readers. DS - Copyright 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Booklist - 03/15/2014 Best friends Anisa and Lionel come face-to-face with adult responsibility when they discover an abandoned baby at a construction site in their Brooklyn neighborhood. The two try to do right by the unnamed baby, but it comes at a cost to their own reputations and reopens old wounds about their difficult family circumstances. Lionel tries to cope with the anger he still feels after his father left his family years ago, and Anisa tries to find common ground with her struggling, widowed mother. Unresolved grief is a prevalent theme, and touchy topics like sex and death are tackled frankly and with tremendous insight. Especially welcome for a middle-grade fiction title are the authentic urban setting, the positive and purely platonic relationship between the male and female protagonists, and a cast of multidimensional Latino characters. - Copyright 2014 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 05/01/2014 Gr 6–8—After sneaking into a construction site in their Brooklyn neighborhood, 13-year old Lionel Perez and his best friend, Anisa Torres, get more than they bargained for when they discover an abandoned newborn in a Porta-Potti. In the process of seeking medical attention for the baby, Lionel and Anisa are regarded with suspicion by the police and hospital personnel who assume that the teens are the parents. At her mother's behest, Anisa is forced to undergo a physical examination to prove that the baby is not hers. Lionel channels his own feelings of parental abandonment—he has an absentee father—into a scheme to kidnap "Baby Doe" and protect her from a similar fate. Needing funds for his ill-fated plan, he hooks up with a shady group of drug-dealing teens. Vigilante's novel is appealing for its colorful mix of strong characters and rich descriptions of Puerto Rican culture. Unfortunately, these elements take a backseat to a disjointed plot overwhelmed by unnecessary drama. Furthermore, complex topics of sexuality and teen pregnancy are unevenly addressed, particularly when the true identity of Baby Doe's mother is revealed.—Lalitha Nataraj, Escondido Public Library, CA - Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.