Blog Tour – Rhino’s Don’t Cry by Mark Grist and Chris Evans

I am excited to announce today, the 20th July 2023, is not only my stop on the Rhino’s Don’t Cry by Mark Grist and Chris Evans blog tour but it is also their Launch Day. Congratulations to both Mark and Chris for the release of this extremely moving picture book, which is planned to be the first in a series highlighting the importance of children expressing their feelings.

Mark Grist is an ex-teacher and now a multi-award-winning poet and international battle rapper with over 40 million views for his poetry & rap videos online. He has been honoured in two categories at the Webby Awards, won two Lovie Awards for his poetry online and toured hundreds of schools around the world. Recently, Mark’s work has appeared on BBC1, ITV, BBC Teach, Channel 4 and BBC 6 music.

As well as writing picture books for Bloomsbury, Mark is working on a second series of his hit podcast Mark Can’t Rap, which is backed by Arts Council England & National Centre for Writing. He lives in Peterborough.

Chris Jevons studied art and design at college, and 3D animation at university. He then worked as a graphic designer, animator and illustrator before moving into children’s book illustration.

Chris has a passion for character design and storytelling, and his books include Goldilocks in Space, My Daddy is Hilarious and 101 Bums. He lives and works in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

My stop on the tour for this emotional and engaging rhyming story, involves a book review.

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Title: Rhinos Don’t Cry

Author: Mark Grist

Illustrator: Chris Jevons

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Milo’s a rhino.
He likes to do all sorts of rhino-y things . . .
He likes writing and climbing
and banister-sliding
and mountain bike riding,
he paints and he sings.

Milo just loves being a rhino – but there’s one small problem . . . rhinos don’t cry.
At least that’s what Spike-O Mcree, his movie-star hero, always says. But when Milo meets Spike-O face to face, he finds out that not only is crying OK, it’s also very brave!
Extract from Rhino’s Don’t Cry by Mark Grist and Chris Jevons

Rhino’s Don’t Cry should come with a warning sticker: This book
will make you cry – which is a good thing.

Written in rhyming couplets and illustrated with vibrant, bold colours and a
good mix of page layouts from illustrations that bleed to the edges of the
page, to vignettes that portray the story comic book style, Rhino’s Don’t
Cry, will have young readers enthusiastically turning the pages. Chris
Jevons has a talent for characterisation that is evident on every spread.

It contains an important message about how healthy it is to cry whatever the
reason and how everyone should release their emotions rather than bottle them
up, no matter your age, gender or job – there is no limit. I hope to see more
children’s books of this calibre in the future. Although Mark Grist has set the
bar quite high for writing an excellent plot, which conveys such an important
message that does not feel contrived in any way.

I enjoyed this book and it definitely made me cry. I am going to get my
husband to read it. There is adventure, a mystery, romance and a problem young
children will be able to relate to. It is the first in the series and I am
eager to see what other feelings are going to be covered.

It would be great for use in the classroom and stimulating discussion on
emotions. Having spent many years teaching throughout primary schools myself, I
would have loved a resource like this to use with the whole age range from
pre-school to Year Six. I plan to use it as one of my BookPenPal books in September.

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You can find out more about Mark, his books and his podcasts on his website: www.markgrist.com and follow him on Twitter: @montygristo and Instagram: @montygristo

To view more of Chris Jevons’ impressive illustrations take a peek at his Bright House portfolio: here. You can also follow him on Twitter: @Chris_Jev and Instagram: @chrisjevonsillustration

To see the rest of the tour check out the Tour Schedule below.