Fiction - General & Miscellaneous, Poetry - Nature

Beyond My Hand

Name: Beyond My Hand
Author: Jorge Elias Lujan
ISBN: 9780888994608

by Jorge Elias Lujan, Georgina Quintana (Illustrator), Elisa Amado

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Overview

A series of magical images unfolds to reveal an entire world. Nothing is what it seems yet everything makes perfect sense. This book could only have originated in a culture rich in magical realism and visual vocabulary. With color illustrations throughout, Beyond My Hand speaks to the very young as they discover the beauty and wonder of the world around them. Author Jorge Elias Lujan is the winner of the 1995 Children's Poetry Prize of the Argentine Association of Children's Literature.

Synopsis

A series of magical images unfolds to reveal an entire world. Nothing is what it seems yet everything makes perfect sense. This book could only have originated in a culture rich in magical realism and visual vocabulary. With color illustrations throughout, Beyond My Hand speaks to the very young as they discover the beauty and wonder of the world around them. Author Jorge Elias Lujan is the winner of the 1995 Children’s Poetry Prize of the Argentine Association of Children’s Literature.

Children's Literature

Luján paints a picture of life through a child's imagination in this poem about discovery. Loosely based on a children's game, everyday objects are used to show how everything in life is connected, each opening to reveal another distinctly different larger thing. The symbolism will be lost on small children, but they will enjoy the singsong flow of the words and the incredible drawings. Quintana's' pastel, dreamlike illustrations are well suited to the simple poem but the random highlighting of text is distracting. The award winning Luján is well known for his magical imagery and visual pictures and stays true to form here. Beyond My Hand appeals to two distinctly different audiences¾the very young who will enjoy it for its imagination and simplicity, and the scholars who will analyze it for the deeper meaning. 2000, Groundwood Books/Douglas & McIntyre, $14.95. Ages 2 to 3. Reviewer: Paulette Jackson AGES: 2 3

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Editorials

Children's Literature

School Library Journal

K-Gr 2-In this picture book, one half of each two-line stanza of a poem appears on each spread: "I moved my hand/and found a coconut./I shook the coconut/and found a lake./I stirred the lake/and found a fish.-I moved my hand/and I found the sky." The poem is repeated as a whole at the end of the book. The illustrations, which are reminiscent of Japanese nature paintings, are done in a limited palette of faded colors against a white background. Read in its entirety, the poem's meaning is obscure. Breaking it apart and trying to illustrate the individual segments creates a lack of coherence and makes the work even less understandable.-Heather E. Miller, Homewood Public Library, AL Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.