Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 07/26/2024 PreS-Gr 2—In three-and-a-half chapters, Dyckman and Teague use sentences and images that could be right out of a McGuffey Reader: "Bat, Cat, and Rat found a cozy home to share. 'Sharing is nice!' said Bat. 'It is,' said Cat. 'It is,' said Rat." For emerging readers, this is a fantastic start with lots of great reinforcement, and it just gets better. With similar sentence structures, the stories include one about their move into a house and picking rooms, another about practical jokes, and a third that takes on reading. Across the board, the book delivers on the "cozy" of the title. Cat and Rat are silly but Bat is the outlier, happy about everything, making the most of opportunities, and falling asleep under the stairs in the last "half" chapter. Teague scales back his style to simple shapes on clean white backgrounds, illustrating the occasional interior for snugness, and then offers wildly expressive facial reactions to help nudge context across. This is a charming early reader, a reminder of how mastery of the format invites children in not with vocabulary, but with story and meaning. VERDICT What a gift to reading, with one particular refrain acting as the recommendation: "Sharing is nice."—Ginnie Abbott - Copyright 2024 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Booklist - 01/17/2024 Book one in the Bat, Cat & Rat series introduces the three protagonists as they move into a house together. Approaching their new home, they agree, “Sharing is nice.” But when they're inside, Cat immediately claims the upstairs. Rat claims the downstairs. Graciously, Bat takes the room under the stairs, calling it “the best of all.” In the second story, Joking, Rat repeatedly teases Cat with this toy, a rubber spider suspended from a stick. After Cat bellows, “Not funny,” Bat comes to the rescue, telling Rat that he loves spiders. But when Rat dangles the toy in front of him, Bat pretends to eat it. “Not funny,” complains Rat, to Cat’s satisfaction. In the third story, “Reading,” two characters start learning to read. The “half” fourth story, “Sleeping,” is a soporific charmer. The illustrator of Jane Yolen’s How Do Dinosaurs . . . ? series, Teague creates three lively characters in a variety of engaging scenes. Equally effective as an inviting beginning-reader book or a read-aloud choice for younger children, this volume features friendship among three well-defined characters, along with humor that kids will enjoy. - Copyright 2024 Booklist.