Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 07/01/2025 *Starred Review* The Forest creeps steadily forward, and with it comes deadly creatures, poisonous pollen, strangling vines, and clawing roots. At Greyman’s Gate, residents wage a daily battle against the foliage’s encroachments up the towering stone wall on which they live. Nervous energy propels Feather down the Wall on this day, not to forage as she should but to deliver a spyglass to a stranger (the first she’s ever met) named Merildun, who has promised to teach Feather how to draw a map of the land beyond her home. Her naivety is rewarded with a treacherous shove from the Wall’s ledge and the theft of her community’s precious spyglass. Miraculously, Feather’s fall is broken by a tree, and she and her scaled ferret, Sleek, manage to scramble back onto the Wall before setting off after the perfidious Merildun. As they did in Island of Whispers (2024), this creative duo fashions a slender, atmospheric tale that accomplishes much in its small page count. Hardinge’s evocative prose shares space with Gravett’s detailed black-and-white drawings that are fittingly accented with green, and together they build a world that effortlessly takes root in the reader’s imagination. As Feather’s breathless adventure unfolds, she encounters the Forest’s sinister nature alongside eye-opening discoveries that make the journey worthwhile. Small but sophisticated, this dark fantasy will entice reluctant readers and genre fans alike. - Copyright 2025 Booklist.