In Your Hands

Carole Boston Weatherford is an ALSC Children’s Literature Legacy Award winner, an honor given to an author or illustrator who has made a substantial and lasting contribution to children’s literature. Her award-winning books include Kin, illustrated by her son Jeffery and a Coretta Scott King Author Honor recipient; Box, which won a Newbery Honor; Unspeakable, which won the Coretta Scott King Award, a Caldecott Honor, and was a finalist for the National Book Award; Respect: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, winner of the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award; ALA Notable Children’s Book You Can Fly; and Caldecott Honor winners Freedom in Congo Square; Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement; and Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom. Carole lives in North Carolina. Visit her at CBWeatherford.com. 

Brian Pinkney has illustrated numerous acclaimed books for children, including Martin Rising; In Your Hands; On the Ball; The Faithful Friend; Duke Ellington; and In the Time of the Drums. His many awards include two Caldecott Honors, a Coretta Scott King Illustration Award, four Coretta Scott King Illustration Honors, and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. Brian lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and frequent collaborator, Andrea Davis Pinkney. Visit him at BrianPinkney.net. Brian Pinkney has illustrated numerous acclaimed books for children, including Martin Rising; In Your Hands; On the Ball; The Faithful Friend; Duke Ellington; and In the Time of the Drums. His many awards include two Caldecott Honors, a Coretta Scott King Illustration Award, four Coretta Scott King Illustration Honors, and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. Brian lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and frequent collaborator, Andrea Davis Pinkney. Visit him at BrianPinkney.net.

* "The moving, poetic text . . . offers both love and reassurance for children and a way to explore some difficult social issues. Pinkney’s striking, loose illustrations in watercolor and gouache use a palette of pastel greens and blues. . . .  Insightful, poignant, groundbreaking—and a reminder that the lives of all children are also in our hands."
* "An exceptional gift to black families, with important underlying messages of our times. . . . Best shared one-on-one with a loved one."
* "Pinkney uses sweeping, expressive ink lines and radiant washes of color to create both an impressionistic mood and poignant immediacy. For all its beauty and lyricism, Weatherford’s book doesn’t equivocate. Because for children like Omari, the stakes are as high as their mothers’ love is deep."
* "A heartfelt monologue . . . [with] luminous artwork . . . this picture book will move many readers, including adults, with its lyrical yet powerful words and art."
"The pictures of a young black boy growing to adolescence and adulthood and the power of the mother’s prayer . . . make it one that may well transcend early readings to become a book to return to as a child becomes a man."