Pat Mora

Click here to read an interview from the "Author Spotlight" featuring Pat Mora on Charlesbridge Publishing's web site.

Join Hands! The Ways We Celebrate Life
Charlesbridge Publishing, photographs by George Ancona

Friends come together to sing, dance, and play in this tribute to community.

Pat Mora weaves the repeating lines of a pantoum, a Malaysian poetic form, into a joyful celebration while George Ancona's energetic photos capture the ways of enjoying good times with others.

Highlighted Reviews
"Lively photographs celebrate both individuality and community. From singing and dancing to a pet parade and masquerade, the joys of playing together are made manifest through Ancona's trademark high-spirited pictures. Parents familiar with The Electric Company and other pieces produced by the Children's Television Network will wax nostalgic over the candid photos with natural light; the clean design and wide diversity of representations in the photos will also capture the attention of younger readers. Mora calls on kids to join in the fun using a pantoum, a Malaysian poetic form. Composed of four-line stanzas, in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza become the first and third lines of the next stanza, the pantoum enlivens the text with repetition and rhythm. The full poem is included at the end with color-coded lines to help readers understand its structure, along with a friendly explanation of the form. (Picture book, 3-6)"—Kirkus Reviews

Check out this nice review of Join Hands on the blog "A Year of Reading."

"The exuberant words of Pat Mora's poem combined with George Ancona's vibrant, happy photographs make Join Hands! an absolute joy!...Each page is given over to one line of verse, in a fun, wiggly font; and the accompanying photograph is either framed in a bright color or presented as a full-bleed image. The motifs presented in the verse are also repeated in the photographs - but whereas there's a universality about the poem, which speaks to and can be chanted by all children, the photographs highlight diverse groups of children having fun putting together their "hoopla day" and "ballyhoo" in a potpourri of colors and traditions … Together, Mora and Ancona have produced a gem - let us hope that Join Hands! The Way We Celebrate Life is the first of many books by the duo! "—Paper Tigers

Find out what a third grader thinks about Join Hands on the blog of the Children's Book Center's (CBC) Cooperative Services for Children's Literature (CSCL) book review initiative.