Yes, Yes, Yaul!

K-Gr 2—The rabbit and turtle rappers from Hip & Hop, Don't Stop! (Hyperion/Disney, 2010) are back for another crowd-pleasing gig. The Oldskool County duo plays to appreciative frogs in Slowjamz Swamp and goats on Turntable Mountain, but they encounter a heckler in Sugar Hill Park. Porcupine Yaul not only disses their music, but he also has a long list of aversions, including rainbows ("Too many colors"), the smell of flowers ("Yuck" ), and the color blue ("Yawn"). Hip and Hop try to change Yaul's standoffish, negative attitude by throwing him a surprise birthday party. The piñata and cake fail to impress and an itchy wool sweater sends the prickly fellow "scratch[ing] and squirm[ing]" across the dance floor. Then "busting moves" to the rappers' beats, Yaul realizes that taking part and "saying yes was much more fun." Czekaj's witty, paneled cartoons are full of puns: Bee-yoncé's wings flutter while she sings "all the single Queen bees," and a rat with the moniker "Kanye Pest" has a trash-can stage. Hip's and Hop's speech bubbles are color coded: red text for Hip's slow drawl and green for Hop's rapid-fire style. The infectious rhymes and clever wordplay make for a perfect read-aloud.—Linda Ludke, London Public Library, Ontario, Canada