Hands by Lois Ehlert

From the Publisher

A child watches her mother and father as they work with their hands, and she knows she wants to build and sew and garden and paint just like them. When they give her a special place to work, lots of good materials, and plenty of encouragement, she makes the most wonderful things! “It’s a work that looks simple, but encompasses at least as many grand notions as Ehlert’s first book, Growing Vegetable Soup.”--Kirkus Reviews

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 1--Charming, creative, and unique, this vibrant title celebrates and nurtures the efforts of young artists. Twice as wide as it is tall, the cover is sturdy cardboard in the shape of a bright yellow work glove with a red wrist band. Inside, pages are interspersed with smaller pages (some die-cut and fold-out) picturing projects and tools used in gardening and creating handicrafts. Written from the perspective of a young child, the narrative explains how mom and dad make things--from wood, paint, cloth, lace, even growing plants, and how they are teaching the narrator to do the same. At the end of the book, the child declares, "I want to be an artist"--that text is followed by a small cutout hand-print page superimposed on a larger work glove (green with white hearts) with the words, "Then I'll join hands with my mom and dad." This lavish, interactive book is a hands-down choice for gift-giving, but fragile for heavy library use.--Lisa Falk, Palos Verdes Library, CA

Kirkus Reviews

In a book that resembles work gloves, an unnamed child speaks of hands: the hands of parents, and the child's own. In pages of vivid, saturated colors, "my father" builds birdhouses and plants vegetables, while "my mother" sews quilts and plants flowers. Their roles are traditional, but the child works, with joy, alongside both of them, and wants to be an artist. The clever shapes—a tin box that opens to reveal screwdrivers, a flap that turns out to be the lid of the child's box of paints—lead to a satisfying final overlay of a child's hand print, Mom's heart-patterned gardening gloves, and Dad's work gloves—the book's cover. It's a work that looks simple, but encompasses at least as many grand notions as Ehlert's first book, Growing Vegetable Soup

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