I'll Hold Your Hand

by Maggie C. Rudd, Elisa Chavarri (Illustrator)

Overview

This sweet picture book celebrates the unbreakable bond of a parent's support for a child though life's milestones, from learning to walk to the first day of school and all the highs and lows in between.

From the night you arrive to your first night away,
from learning to crawl to healing a broken heart,
and for all the highs and lows in between. . .
through every season, every challenge, and every joy, you are loved.

With sweet, lyrical text and stunning art, I'll Hold Your Hand celebrates the unbreakable bond of family, and all the ways our actions can say “I love you” louder than words.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374314132
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	02/08/2022
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	405,424
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

Elisa Chavarri is the illustrator of numerous books for children, including Rainbow Weaver/Tejedora del Arcoiris and Federico and the Wolf. Originally from Lima, Peru, she did much of her growing up in Northern Michigan where she now resides with her husband and two small children whose little hands she loves to hold.

Maggie Rudd is from rural North Carolina where she lives with her husband and two boys. When she isn't writing, she is teaching middle school, making forts, or outside getting muddy with her kids.

Editorial Reviews

"A rhythmic reassurance of unconditional love worth reading time and again…and again." —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2021-08-18
A pledge: From birth to forever, a caregiver will be there for their child.

These three-line stanzas that alternately begin or end with the line “I’ll hold your hand” almost create a parenting vow, not unlike a marriage vow. “I’ll hold your hand” from the “night you arrive / when the whole world comes alive”; in good times, like vacations and snow days, and bad, “when goodbyes are a bummer” that create tantrums or “on your first night away / if you decide not to stay”; in sickness and in health. Each double-page spread features a different caregiver-and-child pair traveling together through the rites of passage, like learning to walk, camping out, the first day of school, and a broken heart. One spread even transposes the adult-child roles when it is the child who holds the hand of the snoring, bearded adult who conked out while reading to the child: “When you’re counting sheep, / and you’re falling asleep, / I’ll hold your hand.” Look carefully. The book in the illustration is this very book. “In the spring or the fall, / when you’re feeling small, / or for no reason at all, / I’ll hold your hand,” the book concludes, adding a third rhyme as a grace note. Although there is no reason to assume that all the families shown are headed by a single adult, all illustrations include only one caregiver and one child, all living in a racially diverse community. Illustrations also include a child in a wheelchair and a mother wearing a hijab. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A rhythmic reassurance of unconditional love worth reading time and again…and again. (Picture book. 3-8)

Kirkus Reviews