Featuring more ground-level break dancing than groundbreaking narrative, this humorous children’s story puts a hip-hop spin...
“What dreams will you follow?” asks this hip-hop children’s book led by a break-dancing, rapping hippo complete with flat-top and track suit. What rhymes with perseverance?
Award-winning hip-hop artist and writer Akala has recently come to enjoy a renewed global presence with the viral status of internet videos featuring his enlightening perspectives on racism and injustice. In this picture book, he brings his supreme MC skills to the page. This tale, made especially for read-aloud or rap-aloud sessions, takes his rhyming prowess and places it in the persona of a hippo aptly named Hip, whose personal style seems to be a mashup of 1980s rap acts Run-DMC and Big Daddy Kane. The audience for his raps? None other than his bird friend Hop, who rocks sneakers and a backward-fitted cap but lacks confidence in his bike-riding abilities. How can he possibly win the Blueberry Hill bike race? Hip’s rhyming motivation can only be compared to current hip-hop standout DJ Khaled. “You can do anything if you try / You can do anything, ride or fly. / Don’t let anybody tell you no. / Focus on your dreams and go!” Readers know this story and how it ends. What news will amuse will be the spices the verse entices as it’s read aloud. Akyüz’s vibrant illustrations will push readers to stretch for those performance points.
Featuring more ground-level break dancing than groundbreaking narrative, this humorous children’s story puts a hip-hop spin on the plot staple of “practice makes perfect”—fun to read, best to rhyme. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61067-683-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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