Review: When The Beat Was Born

I can’t say enough about When The Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop. Let’s start with what a crowning testament to how far biographies for young readers have come. When I think about bio projects from elementary and middle school it looked like this: you chose a subject, you had to find a few different books about that subject, so that subject then had to be John F. Kennedy, Amelia Earhart, or Martin Luther King Jr. So, how pleasing is it to see a books published about obscure characters who have made subtle contributions that go on to fundamentally enhance our culture? Pleasing.

For too long conventional wisdom dictated that informational texts needed to be a straightforward pouring of factual material. Creativity was for fiction. Teachers used to worry that if you weren’t using a non-fiction tone, students would be too easily confused, or they wouldn’t attend to informational aspect. In When The Beat Was Born, we’re talking about a boy who grew up dreaming of rocking the party. A sanitized factual account would undermine the power and beauty of Kool Herc’s story. In fitting with the concept of music’s role in celebrations, Laban Carrick Hill conveys the information in an almost lyrical fashion. 

Kool Herc’s contribution to music was his innovative use of two turntables to extend the segments of a song not containing lyrics. 

“KJ Kool Herc noticed that dancers danced crazy hard during the breaks in the song when the lyrics ended and the music bumped and thumped. Herc knew that’s what dancers wanted so he plugged in two turntables instead of one.”

Even if the concept of a book about the DJ who laid the ground work for sampling isn’t your cup of tea, everybody should take notice of how effectively Hill’s tone reflects his subject matter. But make no mistake, this story is more than that of a DJ. Through the lens of Kool Herc’s story, we’re presented with themes of invention and innovation, society and culture, and above all, the persuasive power of art. 

Then, there’s the matter of Theodore Taylor’s illustrations. While I’m by no means qualified to talk about their magnificence in terms of style, the dimension of understanding they add to the text is what really leaps off the page for me. Take a line, “He imagined himself as a DJ...”  In a single spread, Taylor creates a magical world where miniature character dangle their legs off giants stacks of records or dance atop enormous speakers and high above it all there’s Clive, still a boy barely able to reach the dials, in control of it all. And on the opposite page the line, “Little Clive really wanted to be a DJ.” stands alone. Again, a non-fiction text that doesn’t underestimate the importance of communicating the allure of the magical influence of music. Simply put, these are illustrations worthy of Caldecott attention. 

Finally, there’s the matter of the author’s note. Especially with non fiction, I’m especially interested in the author’s connection to their subject. Hill’s tale might be the most fascinating one I’ve heard yet. While researching the sales of laundry detergent in Harlem and the Bronx, “ I discovered a youth movement that was the antithesis of gang violence.” This is a note that takes the reader through the importance of the subject to the writer, the importance of the story in the context of its time, and leaves us with the importance of how it’s affected our world today, which Taylor does masterfully by pointing out that The Roots are the house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Today, the Common Core asks middle grade students to integrate information from multiple texts to speak knowledgeably about a subject. Using this idea, instead of assigning the traditional routine of reading two books about the same person, students can use a range of exceptional texts to understand a deeper commonality. And thankfully, there are master authors and illustrators out there to bring to life people and stories that can widen our interests and deepen our understanding of each other. 

Additional Reading to use for ELA Standard RI_9