Surf’s Up
by Kwame Alexander; 
illus. by Daniel Miyares
Primary    North-South    32 pp.
2/16    978-0-7358-4220-5    $17.95    g

Alexander follows up his poignant 2015 Newbery-winning middle-grade verse novel The Crossover (rev. 5/14) with…a picture book starring two frogs, one a surfer dude, the other a bookworm. “SURF’S UP, BRO!” calls the first frog to his bud. “Not yet, Dude,” responds the other, absorbed in his reading. While Dude and Bro (still with nose in book) make their way to the beach, Bro reveals some tantalizing plot points from Moby-Dick that slowly pique skeptical Dude’s interest. Highly pigmented art with rich colors and texture makes this beach day burst off the page — and Bro’s story bursts from its pages as well, as Miyares’s illustrations blur more and more of Dude and Bro’s day into the plot of Moby-Dick. In a climactic scene, we see a full-bleed double-page spread showing both frogs trying to manage the storm-tossed ship (“BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES!” says Bro. “Do what to the what?” replies Dude). After finishing the book, Bro heads straight for the water to catch some waves, revealing no spoilers to his now-curious friend. Surfing forgotten, Dude snaps up the abandoned volume to find out for himself what happens—and the art begins to blur reality once more, this time with Dude as ship’s captain. With their strategic use of color and line, the illustrations work well with Alexander’s snappy, spare text (all in dialogue) to create a high-energy tribute to the power of a good book.

From the March/April 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.