James Finds the Beat

Hearing the beat helps James discover the courage to use his voice and find his community.

James is great at tests and homework, but speaking up in class? No way. Just the thought fills his chest with bumblebees. The one thing that makes the bees calm down is music. James can't bring music with him to class, though, or to the second worse place in school: the lunchroom. Everyone already has their friends; James is the odd one out. Until one day, he goes to lunch and hears something familiar. BOOM, TAP, BOOM, TAP, BOOM, TAP, TAP! Kids are rapping in a cypher! When the girl rapping passes the beat to James, he hesitates . . . until he gets lost in the music and finds his voice.

Bringing together a celebration of rap and an empowering mental health awareness message, James Finds the Beat features a young boy who struggles with social anxiety and who finds his voice and his community through music. An endnote includes discussion questions inviting children to explore the story and its ideas further.

Ty Chapman is an author and poet based in Minnesota. In addition to James Finds the Beat, he is the author of Sarah Rising, Looking for Happy, Stokes (written with John Coy), and Tartarus. Ty was a 2022 Center for Arts + Social Justice Fellow, an award used to support a speculative work in progress with social justice themes. He was also a Mirrors & Windows fellow, as well as a Mentor Series fellow and a finalist for Tin House's 2022 Fall Residency, Button Poetry's 2020 Chapbook Contest, and Frontier Magazine's New Voices Contest. He holds a master's degree in writing for children and young adults from VCFA. When Ty isn't writing, he's usually playing pickup basketball, playing board games with his friends, or petting his two cats, Alabaster and Hobbes.