BOOK REVIEW: We’re Going To Be Friends by Jack White

Shane | 30 August 2018 | Reply

BOOK REVIEW: We’re Going To Be Friends by Jack White

Third Man Books
February 2018
Hard cover, $24.99
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar

Picture book / Music

9/10

From John Lennon to Bruce Springsteen, there’s a growing trend to turn the lyrics of a popular song into children’s books, and it is a canny marketing idea: not only does it tap the targeted kids market, but also (perhaps more so) the fans of the artist and the original song.

In this instance it’s The White Stripes’ We’re Going To Be Friends, written by Jack White, originally released on the 2002 album White Blood Cells.

Elinor Blake (aka singer/songwriter April March) provides superbly simplistic illustrations which combine an olde school rural aesthetic with found images to tell a delightfully simple story that encapsulates the wide eyed innocence of making new friends at school, and childhood from a time which sadly now seems to be all but lost.

Before mobile phones and internets and PS4s and DVDs there was just being a kid. Searching for bugs, playing in mud, safely walking to school and playing around the neighbourhood, show & tell, throwing the ball in playtime… I’m old enough to remember when that was everything and parents might not know where their kid was until dinner time.

The book is a lovely reminder of childhood for us oldies, and it makes a great encourager for today’s children – parents could (and should) share it with their kids and encourage them to get outdoors and away from their screens, to play and have fun and get some sunshine on them.

A download card featuring the song in its original form by The White Stripes, and also performed by Blake’s alter-ego April March is included with the book, proving a lovely companion to the story. Get your kids into music, innocence and happiness from a young age – that’s what childhood should be all about.