Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 03/01/2024 In a series of poems, Silverman celebrates 11 successful projects that have resulted in wildlife returning to their previously disturbed, now mostly urban habitats. New York City's Bronx residents cleaned up their river; Oslo's citizens created a Norwegian bee highway, complete with rest stops; and a Los Angeles school replaced its asphalt with native plants, creating a wildlife refuge area. Other cited examples hail from the UK, Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and India. Each poem describes the project with verses spanning one or two spreads. Additional prose text offers more comprehensive information, while Hsu's sunny acrylic-gouache illustrations expand on program details. She depicts rooftop gardens in London, rope bridges over Australian highways that allow wildlife safe access to their divided habitats, and newly created wetlands in Singapore that saw the welcome return of smooth-coated otters. Of special note are the little blue penguins in New Zealand that have learned to navigate tunnels beneath roads to reach their coastal nesting sites. With generous back matter, this makes an upbeat addition to primary ecology units. - Copyright 2024 Booklist.