Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 12/15/2009 The dental case that Telgemeier documents in this graphic memoir was extreme: a random accident led to front tooth loss when she was 12, and over the next several years, she suffered through surgery, implants, headgear, false teeth, and a rearrangement of her remaining incisors. Accompanying the physical treatment came social rough spots with friends, while puberty delivered another set of curveballs with crushes, maturing bodies, and changing family expectations and judgments. Both adults and kids—including various dental professionals and younger siblings—are vividly and rapidly portrayed, giving quick access to the memoirist’s world. Telgemeier’s storytelling and full-color cartoony images form a story that will cheer and inspire any middle-schooler dealing with orthodontia. At the same time, she shows how her early career choice as an animator took root during this difficult period—offering yet another gentle reminder that things have turned out fine for the author and can for her reader as well. - Copyright 2009 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 03/01/2010 Gr 5 Up— When she was in sixth grade, Telgemeier tripped while running and lost her two front teeth. In the years that followed, she went through a torturous series of dental surgeries and repairs, the trauma of which was mirrored by the social struggles she experienced during her adolescence. A minor complaint is that there is no mention of when all of this took place, and readers may be puzzled by seeming anachronisms such as old-school Nintendo games. Telgemeier's full-color artwork is confident and light, and her storytelling is appropriately paced. This straightforward and entertaining autobiographical comic is sure to please.—Douglas P. Davey, Halton Hills Public Library, Ontario, Canada - Copyright 2010 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 03/01/2010 This graphic-style memoir focuses on the author’s years of adolescent transition, from sixth grade to ninth grade; they’re marked not just by the usual awkwardness but also by cosmetic trials after she savages her two front teeth in a fall and undergoes extensive dental and orthodontic work. Raina’s experiences are otherwise generally reflective of her age-she crushes on and is crushed on, spends time with good friends and not-so-good friends-and they’re steeped in her era, with her experiencing the release of Disney’s Little Mermaid and the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. The chronicle sometimes seems a little more like a long anecdote than a shaped narrative, but it touches on enough common and emotionally accessible experience for reader empathy. Telgemeier has a fine eye-or memory-for detail, whether it be the thrill of grossing everybody out with a retainer containing a pair of false teeth, the way ostensible friends ramp teasing up into bullying, or the preteen predilection for taking everything to heart. The art has a friendly, curvy-lined informality reminiscent of Lynn Johnston’s in For Better or For Worse, and the design is conventional, even a little staid, but easy-viewing. The very ordinariness of Raina’s experience makes her an accessible Everygirl, and young readers will find in her a plausible mirror-or crystal ball-for their own adolescent experiences. DS - Copyright 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.