We Are The Supremes, music, and friendship for all

What do The Supremes and the Ramones have in common? While they’ll certainly have more join them in this club, they’re both the subject of recent, excellent illustrated books that are aimed at children aged four through seven. We Are The Supremes is an illustrated book in the Friends Change the World series on Quarto Knows. The book tells the story of three different friends who were talented in different ways who worked through it all to become the most successful girl groups of all time.

All of the books in The Friends Change the World series that we’ve read are charming, non-fiction, and a fascinating look at history. When We Are The Supremes opens we see Mary Wilson going to the school talent show. Florence Ballard also sang in the show. Both girls sang great and became even better friends. They did all the things that teenage girls would do, including imagining themselves being the best girl group in the world.

It was the 50’s and an all-male group called The Primes was looking for an all-girl group to sing with. They held an audition where lots of girls, including them, and a third named Diana Ross, who lived across the street from them too. The Primettes were born and promptly started playing shows around Detroit.

We Are The Supremes offer an age-appropriate description of the issues facing black musicians and the segregated audiences that they played for. It was because of these times that Motown was able to discover that sound. When Mary, Florence, and Diana met Berry Gordy, the manager of Motown they were impressed by how much he knew and really wanted to work with him.

After their audition with Gordy he let them know that he loved their sound, but that they had to finish high school before he could sign them to his record label. The girls were dejected, but spent their final year of high school studying, practicing, and polishing every aspect of their performance. After that year Gordy was ready to sign them but wisely made the girls change their name first. The Supremes were born. Their musical legacy of 45 Billboard Hot 100 hits, 20 Top 10 hits, and 12 number #1 hits would come in the sixties and pave the way for generations of future African-American musicians.

We Are The Supremes has smart, realistic but not too realistic art that elementary readers will effortlessly look at and dream over. It’s accompanied by simple sentences that mid-to-older elementary readers will be able to read by themselves. Those younger readers will make out some of the sight words and will love having the book read to them. For them, it’s a read-along, non-fiction book that elementary ages will like because each member of The Supremes has personality traits that someone will relate to. Some kids will relate to Flo who is smart, Mary who is fun, or Diana who is confident. From a musical perspective to a lesson about not giving up, working with those or are different than you, or a look into the period between the ’50s and ’60s, We Are The Supremes works for young readers. As a bonus, after you read the book you can listen to some of their music, which proved to influence countless artists, including The Ramones.

We Are The Supremes, a Friends Change the World book is by Zoe Tucker with illustrations by Salini Perera and available on Wide Eyed Editions, an imprint of Quarto Knows.

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