Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 08/01/2017 Willems’ stable of elephants and pigs cede the stage to a slightly more nuanced take on the changeable nature of friendships. Meet Sam, a bespectacled, overalls-clad kid who chatters his teeth at the slightest provocation: raindrops, spiders, ominous news headlines, you name it. He’s not scared of Leo, though, a horned, Sendak-style monster. They encounter Frankenthaler, a purple, brace-faced beast, and Kerry, who, tiny text informs us, is “the second-most scaredy-cat kid in the whole world.” Weirdly, the human kids are scared of each other. The monsters, having better things to do, take off, telling the kids, “Figure it out.” That they do, cavorting across single-color, starkly framed Elephant and Piggie–style pages, quickly becoming friends who share many wonderful fears, as well as a few unique to only one of them. It’s a peculiar book, overtly about the shifting alignments of friendships, but also, more subtly, about fears of the other. The characters are a little less cute than most of Willems’, though intriguingly so. An oddball offering, for sure—Willems in a minor key. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: It’s Willems’ world; we just live in it. Expect the usual outrageous demand. - Copyright 2017 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 10/01/2017 PreS-Gr 1—Sam is scared of everything! Everything besides his wonderful friend Leonardo the Terrible Monster, that is. One day Sam makes a particularly terrifying discovery—Kerry and her monster friend Frankenthaler. Kerry just so happens to be the second most scaredy-cat kid in the world (after Sam, of course). Left alone together, Kerry and Sam are forced to face their fears and each other. Together they discover that they have more in common than they think. In addition to being scaredy-cats, they both hate romantic movies and love ice cream. They also learn a lot from their differences—Sam likes to play the flute, while Kerry prefers to rock out on her electric guitar. The pair soon realizes that perhaps other children aren't so scary after all. In the end, much to their monsters' surprise, the two scaredy-cats are replaced with two new friends. In this follow-up to Leonardo, The Terrible Monster, Willems has done it again. He makes the most of the oversize pages, which are sometimes filled with big, bold, text, and sometimes left nearly empty with tiny text or pictures for emphasis. The combination of capital letters and expressive illustrations is classic Willems, and will have young and the old laughing the whole way through. VERDICT Highly recommended for all library and at home collections. A perfect storytime read-aloud.— Elizabeth Blake, Brooklyn Public Library - Copyright 2017 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.