When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop

A John Steptoe New Talent Award Winner

Before there was hip hop, there was DJ Kool Herc.

On a hot day at the end of summer in 1973 Cindy Campbell threw a back-to-school party at a park in the South Bronx. Her brother, Clive Campbell, spun the records. He had a new way of playing the music to make the breaks--the musical interludes between verses--longer for dancing. He called himself DJ Kool Herc and this is When the Beat Was Born. From his childhood in Jamaica to his youth in the Bronx, Laban Carrick Hill's book tells how Kool Herc came to be a DJ, how kids in gangs stopped fighting in order to breakdance, and how the music he invented went on to define a culture and transform the world.

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Published: 08/27/2013
Pages: 32
Weight: 0.97lbs
Size: 10.10h x 10.10w x 0.38d
ISBN: 9781596435407
Age: Ages 9-12

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 4.2
Point Value: 0.5
Interest Level: Lower Grade
Quiz #/Name: 160233 / When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop


Award: Coretta Scott King Award - Winner
Award: Capitol Choices: Noteworthy Books for Children and Teens - Recommended
Award: Bluebonnet Awards - Nominee
Award: Garden State Children's Book Awards - Nominee


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/20/2013
Kirkus Reviews 06/15/2013
Booklist 07/01/2013 pg. 60
School Library Journal 08/01/2013 pg. 122
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 10/01/2013 pg. 95
Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2014 pg. 172 - Recommended, Satisfactory

About the Author

Laban Carrick Hill is the author of America Dreaming: How Youth Changed America in the 60s, Harlem Stomp!: A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance, which was a National Book Award finalist, and Dave the Potter, a Caldecott Honor book, illustrated by Bryan Collier. He lives in Burlington, Vermont.

Theodore Taylor III is an artist, designer, and photographer living in Washington, D.C. When the Beat Was Born is his first picture book.