about the book
In the summer of ’73, Cindy Campbell was throwing a back-to-school party at a South Bronx park. The DJ was her brother, Clive Campbell, and he spun the records for free. Clive developed a way, while playing music, to make the breaks and interludes between verses last longer, giving dancers more time for dancing. His secret? Put the same record on two different turn tables, playing the interludes twice.
Everyone loved it—it is reported that street gangs stopped fighting and started dancing—and so DJ Kool Herc was born at the same time as breakdancing and hip-hop! DJ Kool Herc made up little rhymes of his own to add to the music, styled after rhymes kids would say while jumping rope.
Hip-hop took off! Herc’s fans developed new dance moves, like the toprock, windmill, and turtle. Herc also formed a DJ crew called the Herculoids, and from there the rest is history.
about the author
Laban Carrick Hill is the author of more than thirty books, many of them for younger readers. He writes poetry, fiction, and non-fiction; everything from biographies to mysteries.
Laban earned a BA in English from Baruch College, certification from the Latin and Greek Institute at the City University of New York, and an MFA from Columbia University. He started working as a copywriter and market analyst, but within five years he was teaching writing, first at Baruch College, then at Columbia University and St. Michaels College. He is currently teaching at the Solstice MFA Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College in Massachusetts.
While attending a conference in Vermont, Laban wandered into a talk given by Dr. Lisa Gail Collins, a professor of art at Vassar. During her presentation, she showed one of Dave’s pots with the haunting haiku “I, made this Jar, all of cross/If, you don’t repent, you will be, lost.” This became Laban’s inspiration to write the poem celebrating Dave’s life.
Laban lives in Burlington, Vermont. When he is not teaching or writing, he is involved in the Writers Project of Ghana, an organization he co-founded and co-directs.
Sources:
Author website
Author biography: Biography
Author spotlight: Gathering Books
Also by Laban Carrick Hill:
Dave the Potter : Artist, Poet, Slave. Little, Brown and Company. 2010.
about the illustrator
On the Internet you may know him as Tedikuma, but in real life his name is Theodore Taylor III. Born in Roanoke, Virginia, Theodore studied drawing, graphic design, photography, and web design—that is, Communication Arts—at Virginia Commonwealth University. Theodore draws inspiration for his art from music, posters, comics, album covers, and video games.
If anyone is interested, Theodore is also a self-proclaimed pizza connoisseur.
Source:
Illustrator website
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Dave the Potter : Artist, Poet, Slave by Laban Carrick Hill
To be honest it is amazing we even have a record of Dave the Potter. He was a slave living in the mid-1800s in South Carolina. Forced to work for a potter, Dave became greatly skilled in spinning clay, and on some of his pots he even wrote poems. Knowing how to read and write was outlawed for a slave, but Dave didn’t care. He had to express himself!
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