Hand Book
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Starting with the clap of a baby’s chubby new hands, significant life moments are poignantly depicted with tender illustrations and sparse text in this masterful work from Jeff Newman. Hands wave good-bye as the first trip on the school bus is made; hands toss a cap in the air at college graduation. Shaking hands with someone new marks the start of a career, and, perhaps the most important gesture of all, finding the hand to hold forever ultimately begins the cycle anew. With no more than a few words on each spread and thick black line illustrations with spots of vibrant color, Hand Book is a beautiful testament to the journey of life and makes an ideal gift or keepsake.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Telegraphic verse and line drawings celebrate the many things hands can do. "Two hands clap" is pictured by a pair of chubby orange hands emerging from the bottom of the left-hand page; for "Two hands slap," at right, the same two arms land on a pair of bongos from the top of the page. Heads and faces are drawn without features, or facing away from the reader, to assure that the reader's gaze stays focused on the hands. In what is perhaps the book's smartest design decision (though there are many), Newman's (The Boys) loose black outlines have been subtly embossed, making the reading experience a fittingly tactile one. "Hands shake," writes Newman late in the book, as a blue hand shakes an orange hand; on the next page ("and hold"), two blue and orange figures the owners of the hands, clearly are shown walking through a garden in a gentle antiracist message. Newman challenges readers to consider their hands as intricate and capable tools, instruments of emotion, creation, and tenderness; children will almost certainly see them with new respect. Ages 4 8.
