‘Look at these hands, Joseph. / Did you know these hands / used to . . .’ Starting from the refrain, a man on each double-page spread tells a smiling boy how to tie his shoes, play the piano, hit a line drive, and more. Cooper’s signature style of softly blurred illustrations in sepia shades shows the bonds in a loving family. There is an abrupt break in the verse as the man remembers, ‘Did you know these hands / were not allowed to touch / the bread dough / in the Wonder Bread factory?’ The bosses said that white people did not want to eat bread touched by black hands, so blacks were only allowed to sweep the floor, work the line, and load the trucks. Then the story’s tone shifts again, and stirring pictures celebrate the historic civil rights and union protests that brought attention to the issue, and a long author’s note offers more contexts. The story’s roots in rarely told history will widen the audience of this moving title to older readers, too.
Item Code: B-P053
Price: RM21.00
Target Reader: 6+ years old
Writer: Margaret H. Mason
Illustrator: Floyd Cooper
ISBN: 978-0-547-21566-2
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pages: 32
Language: English
Measures: 28.5 x 22.4 x 0.9 cm
Weight: 420 g / 0.42 kg
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