Hands & Hearts: With 15 Words in American Sign Language

PreS-Gr 1—It would be difficult to find a more refined depiction of a mother and child enjoying a blissful day at the beach. The watercolor-and-pencil illustrations are soft, inviting, and appealing to the senses. They invite the eye to focus on small details, such as the close-up of sandals kicked off in the sand. The book is in landscape, highlighting the horizontal nature of the beach. The page layout is steady throughout, producing a sense of profound calm and quiet joy. Each spread includes an American Sign Language diagram for a word in the text, framed by a sketch of shells, sand dollars, and other seashore motifs. A small centered square of text in verse hovers in the white space. "Take my hands/And dance me dizzy/Swing me around/Fly me to the dunes." Opposite are the painterly, tactile, almost cloudlike, warmly hued illustrations of the outing, from sunup to sundown. The only drawback to this poetic summertime story is that a couple of signs are not accurately illustrated or commonly used. For example, "hand" is signed not palms down, but palms facing the body, at chest level. Nevertheless, the book is recommended for libraries with an interest in ASL, and those in need of beach-themed picture books for the mommy-and-me crowd.—Sara Lissa Paulson, The American Sign Language and English Lower School, New York City