Hey You!

This powerful, inspirational picture book by award-winning illustrator Dapo Adeola has its roots in a question he asked himself, ‘What might have been different had I felt more confident and assured in my skin at a younger age – if I’d seen my story told?’  Subtitled An Empowering Celebration of Growing Up Black, this book delivers that confidence and assurance and is dedicated to ‘all the children of the Black diaspora, both young and old’.  Through a series of double page spreads, each illustrated by a different Black illustrator, the book explores the experience of growing up Black, celebrates the love of family and the strength of community and urges its young readers to hope, dream, make choices and be free.  Dapo Adeola says that the book grew out of his emotional response to the events of 2020, the murder of George Floyd, the increasing awareness of structural racism and the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement.  These political themes can be seen in illustrations of struggle and protest.

The text is honest, uplifting, and emotional.  The illustrations, by eighteen talented Black illustrators, work skilfully to bring the words to life.  From the appealing endpapers and through each double page spread, with their changes of font and style, a vibrant, exhilarating world leaps out.  Bright, bold colours depict a variety of lives full of possibility and imagination, with thoughts and images bursting out of the heads of children.  The first ‘Hey You!’ is spoken to a new-born child and the last to an unborn child, both effectively framing a book filled with a sense of generations passing on love, strength, and hope.  This celebration of diverse lives should find a place in family homes and classrooms, providing many opportunities for thinking, sharing and discussion.