I was very intrigued when I saw a children's book about Prince. Although his success as a biracial musician is inspiring, his life's story and even some of his music can easily be seen as inappropriate for children. With this in mind, I was very curious to see how the book handled such themes. They handled them very well, I think. The author focused mostly on the basic history of Prince's musical and acting careers, only briefly implying "suggestive dance moves" and "explicit language and subject matter" when needed. The book also puts a lot of focus on race and the challenges Prince faced as a biracial man. Overall, I would not suggest this book to anyone younger than nine or ten due to the reading level mostly, although I also wouldn't want to risk a younger child looking up Prince on their parent's iPad. ( )

First thing’s first: INCONSISTENCY. On the back cover of the book, the author writes that Prince’s father is black and his mother is white. The problem with this is that it is widely known that Prince’s mother is multiracial and secondly, this “fact” is contradicted inside the book when the author writes that his mother is multiracial. It questions the motive behind saying Prince’s mom is white. Is it just to grab a potential reader’s attention? If so, it brings into question the accuracy and credibility of the information in the text and its author. There seems to be sensationalism present, along with a lack of distinction between fact and opinion.

The purpose of a series like this one, the text claims, is to show that biracial stars have overcome controversy and discrimination, and that race should not matter. However, even though Prince openly identifies as a black man, the makers of this series have decided that he is (and other stars they’ve profiled who identify as black like Beyonce and even Rosa Parks are) “biracial.” Yet there are no direct interviews in the books to clarify verify any information from the subjects themselves.

One positive is that the book definitely doesn’t focus only on race. It serves mostly as a biography of a great artist and his impact on the music industry. But if that is the main focus, why title the book and the series “Transcending Race in America: Biographies of Biracial Achievers”? Why would race even matter if the text is strictly about their talents?

The language of the text reads almost like a textbook. It is calculated and distant, informational and frankly a little boring.

The photos of performances, awards acceptance speeches and album covers are fun and cover full and half pages but there is no special design aspect to it. The photos seem to be simply placed where they’d fit on the page. There appears to be no organization of the photos to add to the story.

The narrative is very unfamiliar and doesn’t follow any particular chronology, however there is a timeline provided at the very end. There is also a chronological list of awards he’s won and an index.

The covers are pretty black and white, literally. Half of the cover is black and the other half is white—simplifying a far more complex issue than the creators are acknowledging, as Prince is not simply black or simply white and he is not even a mix of only the two. It might be difficult to explain this and the underlying race relations issues to students.