Drake!

February 1, 2014
Grades 4-7 At 15, Aubrey Drake Graham secured a slot on the TV drama Degrassi: The Next Generation. Acting proved to be the distraction from school that he needed; it wasn't easy being biracial and Jewish, even in a Jewish high school. So, at 17 he dropped out to pursue his music. Drake released his first mixtape online in 2006. Since then, his career as a rapper has skyrocketed: to date, he has won multiple awards, both in music and philanthropy. Despite being a multimillionaire, he doesn't take his fans for grantedhe spends individual time with them while autographing CDs. The high-interest, low-vocabulary text is broken up by colorful page headings, lots of decorated white space, short chapters, and numerous captioned photographs. This entry in the Sizzling Celebrities series concludes with further information and an index, but it is missing a time line that would have been helpful to readers and report writers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2014
These cursory biographies chronicle how each young musician or actor became famous. The poorly edited texts consist of quotes from media interviews, lists of statistics and awards won, and other bland details ("Drake doesn't like when people use Twitter to act mean"). Accompanying stock photos primarily show the stars posing for cameras at awards shows and premieres. Reading list, websites. Ind.

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)