What Does The Fox Say?
Ylvis, Christian Løchstøer (co-authors) and Svein Nyhus (Illustrator)
By: Nevra Azerkan
Rating: [The Breakdown]
“The Fox” song by Norwegian duo, Ylvis made a huge impact in music in 2013. What started out as a comedic video later turned into a viral YouTube phenomenon. To date the video has obtained over 342 million views. Though it’s debatable whether the song is catchy and entertaining or just plain annoying and ridiculous, the reality is that the song did its job of becoming popular.
To capitalize further on the success of the song, and in a brilliant move, the brothers released a children’s book of the same name through Simon & Schuster. Essentially, the lyrics of the song are the book’s story—and it’s perfect. If the lyrics didn’t already get stuck in my head, I can now read along with the book and share my excitement (and silliness) with others. Seriously, I was extremely stoked that they came out with this book and I bought my copy right away.
The book is illustrated by, famed Norwegian artist, Svein Nyhus. I wasn’t aware of any of his work prior to this, but I absolutely love his contribution and it fits the story so well. It’s not cheesy, but rather elegant. The way this book was done makes it marketable as a children’s book and also, as a book for the older crowd to own for their amusement.
The book was released last month and sold out within one day on Amazon. It then went on to land on the New York Times Best-Seller list. How insane is that? There’s almost no chance of these guys being able to pull this off again with another hit song, but that’s okay because What Does The Fox Say? is an awesome stand alone book. It’s fun for all ages and you can use the music video as a sing-a-long for kids or, in my case, for adults. Pure genius.
PopZineOnline.com 