Bound To Stay Bound

Other - 06/16/2025 Barnes (I Got You) weaves together stories of spirituality, injustice, unrealistic expectations, and police brutality into a powerful tale. Despite being in middle school, Black 13-year-old Henson Blayze is tapped to play on his Great Mountain, Miss., hometown’s high school football team, prompting residents of his mostly white, sports-obsessed community to begin treating him like a celebrity. Though his father is wary of the increased scrutiny, Henson revels in the attention. Then his friend, Black fifth grader Menkha, is brutalized by state troopers, and Henson vacates the football field mid-game in response. As the townspeople’s idolization sours, and as Henson and the surrounding Black communities rally around Menkha seeking justice, Henson finds himself in the middle of a citywide scandal that exposes Great Mountain’s history of tokenism and systemic racism. Multilayered plotting adroitly tackles issues of racist caricature-particularly surrounding the town’s misuse of Indigenous imagery-and revisionist history. Henson’s indomitable first-person POV anchors the narrative, throughout which Barnes depicts a self-assured protagonist courageously coming into his own. Ages 10-up. Agent: Regina Brooks, Serendipity Literary. (Sept.) - Copyright 2025

School Library Journal - 09/12/2025 Gr 6 Up—Barnes makes his middle grade debut with a masterly and searing account of a Black teen football prodigy. Henson Blayze is such a phenomenal athlete that he is starting and starring on the high school varsity team, despite only being 13. He is worshipped wherever he goes and treated like royalty in his small Mississippi town; treatment that, thankfully, does not corrupt Henson's devotion to his family's vineyard, father, and young neighbor, whom he treats like a little brother. However, when a vicious racist attack occurs, Henson learns of his community's true thoughts about his value as a Black boy, and he must choose between entertaining the masses and standing up for justice. Barnes includes riveting historical storytelling elements, light magical realism, and an ample amount of truth about the treatment of Black people in the United States, especially in the sports and entertainment industry. VERDICT This powerful tale of race and American culture and history seamlessly weaves a popular middle grade topic, football, with crucial lessons about justice and humanity for tween and younger teens. This is Barnes at his best and is a required purchase for middle school libraries.—Kate Olson - Copyright 2025 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

School Library Journal - 09/12/2025 Gr 6 Up—Barnes makes his middle grade debut with a masterly and searing account of a Black teen football prodigy. Henson Blayze is such a phenomenal athlete that he is starting and starring on the high school varsity team, despite only being 13. He is worshipped wherever he goes and treated like royalty in his small Mississippi town; treatment that, thankfully, does not corrupt Henson's devotion to his family's vineyard, father, and young neighbor, whom he treats like a little brother. However, when a vicious racist attack occurs, Henson learns of his community's true thoughts about his value as a Black boy, and he must choose between entertaining the masses and standing up for justice. Barnes includes riveting historical storytelling elements, light magical realism, and an ample amount of truth about the treatment of Black people in the United States, especially in the sports and entertainment industry. VERDICT This powerful tale of race and American culture and history seamlessly weaves a popular middle grade topic, football, with crucial lessons about justice and humanity for tween and younger teens. This is Barnes at his best and is a required purchase for middle school libraries.—Kate Olson - Copyright 2025 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.