“His drawings are not neat or clean, nor does he color inside the lines. They are sloppy, ugly, and sometimes weird, but somehow still BEAUTIFUL.” Steptoe’s breathtaking homage to street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is poetic both in its lyrical narrative and in its magnificent illustrations. Steptoe makes no attempt to replicate Basquiat’s art style; rather he gives a sense of it through his own complex and original collage and paintings on wood. Born in Brooklyn to a Puerto Rican mother and Haitian American father, young Jean-Michel was always encouraged to draw and create. When he left home as a teenager and moved to Lower Manhattan, he began to paint graffiti art and poems throughout the city, always signing his work SAMO©. His brilliant artistry was soon recognized and he had success as a gallery artist before he died at age 27. Steptoe’s triumphant tribute communicates the heart, soul, and drive of an artist. (Ages 7-11)

Winner of the Randolph Caldecott Medal and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award

Jean-Michel Basquiat and his unique, collage-style paintings rocketed to fame in the 1980s as a cultural phenomenon unlike anything the art world had ever seen. But before that, he was a little boy who saw art everywhere: in poetry books and museums, in games and in the words that we speak, and in the pulsing energy of New York City. Now, award-winning illustrator Javaka Steptoe's vivid text and bold artwork echoing Basquiat's own introduce young readers to the powerful message that art doesn't always have to be neat or clean--and definitely not inside the lines--to be beautiful.