Review: Riley Can Be Anything; Riley Knows He Can by Davina Hamilton, illustrated by Elena Reinoso
What do want to be when you grow up? How do you overcome stage fright? The Ella and Riley picture book series, authored by Davina Hamilton, aims to help children tackle everyday questions and problems.
What's not every day is that the books focus on a Black family, going a long way to address the lack of diverse representation in children's literature.
The first two books feature youngest family member Riley, a loveable smiley schoolboy who is guided by his older relatives. This review will consider both books together, Riley Can Be Anything (published 2017), and Riley Knows He Can (published 2018).
In Riley Can Be Anything, Riley is spending time with Cousin Joe. When Joe discovers that Riley has no idea about his future job prospects, he decides to educate him by suggesting some potential roles: chef, musician, pilot, and doctor. Black males are typically pigeonholed into the catering, music, and sports industries, and, thankfully, Hamilton leans away from these stereotypes during the course of the story.
Although conceptually there is a wonderfully affirming sentiment throughout, the book doesn’t fully pay off at a character or plot level. At the start, Riley is blissfully unknowing until Joe introduces a problem that ultimately is not fully resolved. In the end, Riley declares he can be anything he wants, which would be absolutely fine apart from the fact that his white peers clearly state their career ambitions, resulting in Riley coming off a bit clueless in comparison.
More promisingly in my favourite of the two books, Riley Knows He Can, Riley’s character feels more developed and his problem is well-defined from the outset. Riley is feeling wobbly about an imminent school play performance, and as the curtain call comes closer he starts to get nervous. But when big sister Ella offers some reassuring words, he manages to overcome his fears in a kingly fashion.
It's great to see the introduction of Ella who is a bright, confident Black girl. Riley is also proactive in his use of strategies to calm his emotions which is a really positive takeaway for children in KS1 experiencing similar worries.
Hamilton is explicit about what anxiety feels like, for example, butterflies in the tummy and feeling a need to hide, and this will encourage young readers to identify and connect their emotions to bodily states/actions, which is so crucial in the current climate. Children could also recall times when they've felt nervous and what they did to help them to cope. They could also think about jobs people do and their own job aspirations (PSHE).
Both books are written thoughtfully in rhyming sentences which, at times, constrain the scope of the stories, and the paragraphs are a little dense in layout. Nevertheless, children could pick out rhyming pairs of words, extending them to make their own rhyming word lists. The repetitive refrains 'I can do anything' and 'I can do this...' are encouraging mantras for success and children may be inspired to create their own positive affirmation posters (writing).
Elena Reinoso's collage-effect illustrations are reminiscent of Ezra Jack Keates' style, with simple backgrounds that enable the characters to take centre stage. Most notably, in the second book, Reinoso has paid great attention to representing a range of ethnicities in the crowd scenes, as well as varying Black skin tones and hair textures. Facial expressions are also more wide-ranging, too, which helps to build empathy with the characters.
My little boy certainly enjoyed both stories and his face instantly lit up when he saw Riley. Both books show an ordinary Black family experiencing everyday life in a positive upbeat way which is, without doubt, a huge step in the right direction.
Resources for teachers and parents
Arinzé Kene reading Riley Can Be Anything (Tata Story time)
Genre | Narrative: stories with familiar settings |
Child-led interests (EYFS) | Role play (home corner; castles kings and queens) |
Age group (EYFS, KS1, KS2) | KS1 |
Curriculum links/topics (EYFS/NC) | Reading comprehension (Y2) - listening to, discussing and expressing views about a wide range of contemporary and classic poetry, stories and non-fiction at a level beyond that at which they can read independently; discussing and clarifying the meanings of words, linking new meanings to known vocabulary; discussing their favourite words and phrase; drawing on what they already know or on background information and vocabulary provided by the teacher; answering and asking questions; participate in discussion about books, poems and other works that are read to them and those that they can read for themselves, taking turns and listening to what others say; Writing - writing for different purposes; planning or saying out loud what they are going to write about; proofreading to check for errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation (for example, ends of sentences punctuated correctly) PSHE: jobs people do; positive thinking; feelings; zones of regulation |
Suitability | home library |
General features | third-person narration; rhyme; some repetition |
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