Daddy and Me and the Rhyme to Be (A Karma's World Picture Book)

A humorous and heartwarming picture book from legendary musician Chris "Ludacris" Bridges about the special bond between father and daughter.\nKarma and her daddy love to make music together! Karma sets up the rhyme and daddy finishes it. Together, they're the perfect team! But when it's time for Karma to write her daddy a rap for his birthday all on her own, she can't quite make it perfect. What rhymes with banana anyway? Told with heart and humor, Karma soon realizes that she never has to do anything alone as long as she has daddy by her side.\nFrom School Library Journal\nPreS-Gr 1—In this adaptation of the animated series "Karma's World," Karma decides to write a special birthday song for her father. Her discarded attempts at rhymed lines include: "I love it when me and Daddy stir batter with a spoon/ And our favorite thing to do is play soccer on the moon!" and "He makes me feel safe from when I sleep to when I wake/ And at night he tucks me in under a giant pancake!" These bizarre false starts, illustrated literally as imagined digressions, feel as contrived to readers as they do to the characters rejecting them. The book's title itself suffers from the same forced quality, with the confusing phrase "the rhyme to be" left unmentioned and unexplained. The illustrations resemble awkward freeze-frames digitally cut and pasted from a cartoon, ill-suited to the picture book medium. VERDICT Both the writing and art of this title exemplify the inherent shortcomings of picture books adapted from animated television series. Skip it.—Jonah Dragan