What Will These Hands Make? by Nikkie McClure
What Will These Hands Make?
Review Copy from AbramsKids
Nikki McClure's work is always a celebration and an inspiration, whether she is turing her artist's eye to nature, creativity, sustainability, or community. With What Will These Hands Make, the author/illustrator who creates her illustrations using an X-Acto blade knife to cut black paper celebrates all of these things in one poetic tribute to making things by hand and the many ways this connects us with others.
From something as small as a hat for a baby's head to something as grand as a bridge or a boat, McClure asks and answers, with every page turn, "What will these hands make?" Beginning with a family preparing for a birthday celebration, a girl (who, on the previous page is seen following a pattering and cutting red fabric into a fish shape) can be seen hugging her creation, McClure leads readers from the home and out into the neighborhood where others can be seen making things with their hands. Occasional pops of white, yellow, blue and green in the illustrations help to tell the story, drawing your eye to various handmade items. As the book draws to a close, a parade of guests, all carrying or carting things they have made (a six layer cake, a flag, a bouquet, a wooden box) make their way to the celebration. McClure closes her book with these words,
Will these hands make a safe place to be?
Will these hands make a community?
With the final pages (followed by an author's note) McClure inspires readers further...
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