Between My Hands *Blog Tour*

 Welcome to the fourth day of the Blog Tour for Between My Hands! This gorgeous story comes to us from Mitali Perkins and Naveen Selvanathan.

About the Book

In this encouraging, reassuring picture book, National Book Award nominee Mitali Perkins invokes the Indian custom of namaste, meaning “I bow to you,” to show how little hands are capable of great love.

What’s between your hands

when you namaste the world?

Maya is only three days into summer vacation and already bored. Outside her window, the street is full of neighbors. Coming and going. Earning and spending. Fixing and mending. Everyone has something to do—everyone’s hands are busy.

Except Maya’s. When she opens her palms, they are empty. They are small.

What in the world can her hands do?

As Maya longs to do something useful alongside her neighbors—proclaim truth, stand for justice, or show mercy—she discovers that children like her can give the greatest gift of all: love.

What I Love

I love the gentle yet powerful nature of this book. A small child can make big moves through little gestures. It is a story of discovery between both self and others. The third in Perkins' picture book Between series, this is a must add to your collection. It's hard to choose a favorite piece of a book, but for me it might just be the care in choosing the character's names that Perkins describes in her Author's Note. Not only did I find it touching, but I learned new meanings behind names and words from cultures outside my own. Selvanathan's illsutrations are vibrant with so much play on light and shadow. There is depth in the illustrations that adds more power to the text. Just take a close look at the faces of the people before and after Maya speaks to them. The final spread is a stunning sunset, the perfect moment of closure.

Praise

"Perkins conveys a meaningful message. She seamlessly interweaves multiple storylines in just a few words, telling a layered tale using simple, child-friendly language, aided by Selvanathan’s vibrant, detailed illustrations...Proof that even the smallest hands can wield giant power." —Kirkus

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mitali Perkins has written several books for young readers, including Home Is in Between, Between Us and Abuela, Forward Me Back to You, You Bring the Distant Near (a National Book Award Nominee, a Walter Honor Book, a South Asia Book Award Winner, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, and a Shelf Awareness 2017 Best Book of the Year), Rickshaw Girl (a NYPL Top 100 Book), and Bamboo People (an ALA Top 10 YA novel). Mitali was born in India and currently resides in Northern California.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Naveen Selvanathan is a visual-development artist specializing in illustration and game and movie concept art. Naveen was born and raised in India and was always interested in art as a child. He eventually moved to San Francisco to pursue his master’s in fine art at Academy of Art University. He has worked with Disney Interactive Studios, Sony Pictures Animation, and DreamWorks Animation and has contributed to movie franchises such as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Hotel Transylvania, and Puss in Boots. He is currently based in Los Angeles, California.

Thanks for stopping by!