Hand Rhymes

A collection of nursery rhymes with diagrams for accompanying finger plays.

Fourteen jaunty hand games are accompanied by bright paintings, while easy-to-follow drawings detail the hand movements. An ideal picture book for active playtime sharing. An American Bookseller Pick of the Lists and Booklist Children's Editors' Choice. Full color.

Publishers Weekly

A followup to Brown's warmly embraced Finger Rhymes offers 14 games to play, performing the actions in jaunty poems that are illustrated by brightly colored and bouncy pictures of kids, kittens, snowmen and other major figures in children's lives. Nestled on a parent's lap, a toddler listens to the verses and imitates the gestures in sketches accompanying the lines. Hands whirling, fists forming circles, fingers pointing to eyes, etc., express the merriment in ``The Snowman'': ``Roll him and roll him until he is big./ Roll him until he is fat as a pig./ He has two eyes and a hat on his head./ He'll stand there all night,/While we go to bed.'' A caterpillar's metamorphosis, a bunny hop, goblins, fighting monkeys and other attractions add up to a fun fest. (26)

Two things suggest that Arthur, the loveable star of children s books and the PBS series, may not be so fictitious after all: 1) Kids are known to call Marc Brown s house looking for their bespectacled friend and 2) Brown s third grade class picture -- according to many, a dead-ringer for the aardvark himself.