Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 08/01/2011 *Starred Review* Fourteen-year-old Garnet tells readers on page one that before she was born, her dad left her mother, Betty Sue, for a carnival singer. Life hasn’t been easy, and when Betty Sue decides to join a friend in Florida, Garnet understands the appeal of starting over. What she doesn’t understand, though, is why she gets stuck with her father’s family—folks she has never met—while Betty Sue is off making a fresh start. At first, Garnet is as unhappy about the situation as some of her relatives seem to be. But Aunt June treats Garnet like the daughter she never had, and soon enough, Garnet begins to feel like a member of a real family, something she has never had. The twist in the story is Aunt June’s cancer, which leads her and Garnet to a new church each Sunday. As in her previous books, White captures life in small-town America; here, it’s Black Rock, Virginia, in the 1950s. Family and religion are at the center of everything, and it’s up to Garnet to decide how she feels about both, especially after her father turns up, and Garnet meets a boy at church. Though perhaps not as layered as Sheila O’Connor’s similarly themed Sparrow Road (2011), this heartwarming story has more than a touch of wonder. Expanding one’s emotional life, the work of teens, is beautifully captured here, and Garnet’s hard-won success will reach across the decades to today’s readers. - Copyright 2011 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 10/01/2011 Gr 5–7—Times are tough for a single mom in Elkhorn City so when April Garnet Rose turns 14, her mother decides to move from Kentucky to Florida where there are more and better jobs. Garnet will stay with her father's sister, June, and her family in Black Rock, VA, while her mom gets established and settled. However, she has never met her father (he left before she was born) or any of his family. Though Garnet is initially uncomfortable with Aunt June, her husband, and their sons, she comes to appreciate family and the small community. She also realizes why her aunt is so actively seeking God by visiting different churches each week. When June's cancer disappears, she attributes it to faith healing by Reverent Shepherd, whose son, Silver, has become Garnet's first love, but a tragic accident results in her first loss. Garnet narrates her journey of discovery and heartbreak, maturation, and growing understanding. It is her voice that makes the relatively speedy resolution plausible. As in her other novels, White captures a small rural community in the mid-1950s that is peopled with likable, memorable characters.—Maria B. Salvadore, formerly at Washington DC Public Library - Copyright 2011 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 12/01/2011 Garnet always thought her father and his people wanted nothing to do with her and her mother, so she’s surprised as well as angry when her mother drops her off at the house of Garnet’s aunt, her father’s sister, while Mom goes to Florida to set up a new life for her and Garnet there. While Garnet’s aunt and one of her cousins seem delighted by her presence, her uncle and her other cousin are a bit frosty. They warm up, though, when they see that Garnet is making Aunt June happy by accompanying her to church services and helping around the house, and Garnet soon learns that their initial coldness was really worry, as Aunt June has cancer. Churchgoing eventually leads to a boyfriend for Garnet and a miracle for Aunt June, but the most salient event of the summer for Garnet is the appearance of her father, who, as it turns out, never knew she existed. White’s sure-handed and warm-hearted depiction of small-town Southern life in the 1950s shines here; young readers will find the stage-setting fascinating as White subtly weaves into her plot a sense of what new technologies like freezers and television meant to families when they were first introduced. Garnet’s emotional tenor is just right for her age and circumstances, as she moves through the anger of abandonment, the wonder and awkwardness of first love, and the initial confusion and ultimate sense of belonging that accompanies finding a place in a family she didn’t know she had. Indeed, readers will warm to all of these characters who exude simple, unaffected grace and temperate, understandable human failings. KC - Copyright 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.