Book Giveaway: My Hands Make The World by Amalia Hoffman

Amalia Hoffman has written and illustrated a new picture book, My Hands Make The World, published by PJ Library Publishing. They have agreed to send a copy to the one lucky winner in the US.

Just leave a comment. Reblog, tweet, or talk about it on Facebook with a link and you will get additional chances to win. Let me know other things you did to share the good news, so I can put the right amount of tickets in my basket for you. Sharing on Facebook, Twitter or reblogging really helps spread the word for a new book. So, thanks for helping Amalia.

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BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Night and day, land and sea, birds and animals . . . it’s amazing what these hands can make! Through handprints, finger paints, and child-friendly language, this book retells the ancient story of Creation while encouraging young readers to celebrate their own capacity to imagine and create.

BOOK JOURNEY:

Growing up in Israel, Bible Studies was part of my elementary school general education. I loved the bible stories. There were good guys, bad guys, female heroines, fortunetellers, and tons of miracles.

One story that left me utterly confused, was the creation of the universe as it is told in the book of Genesis.

In the bible it is written that “In the beginning, the world was Tohu Va Vohu (Ancient term for: without shape or form) and darkness spread upon the earth.”

Then, God separated light from dark, water from sky and in 6 days, created the entire universe.

I read the story many times but could never resonate with it.

I mean, this is an awful lot of stuff to do in 6 days. In my school’s bible book, weird illustrations in faded colors made a poor attempt to describe this marvel to elementary school children.

Later on in life, my sons “inherited” the same confusion. How did God do that and who is God?

Unlike the many miracles, the story of the Creation is presented as “Scientific” fact that is completely remote and confusing.

I thought about creating a picture book with a different point of view but for a long time I struggled with this challenge.

Working with young children, I find out that I often come up with solutions by observing them. Over the years, I did finger paints painting with little kids. Finger painting is probably the way that most kids start creating art. What attracts them most is the fact that they themselves control the media, without any adult help. All they have to do is smear their hands in the slushy paint and then, make marks on the paper. Just watch a child doodling in finger paint and you’ll see this liberating expression on their faces.

So I went down to my basement where I store paints, sponges and tons of art supplies and decided to pretend that I’m now 2 years old and discovering finger-paints. The first thing to do was to “get messy. Just try swooshing your hands in sloshy, slimy paints and you’ll see how relaxing it feels. I used large sheets of paper and let my hands go wild!! Soon, I had many

handprints in a variety of colors, swirls, dots and drips.

Since both my hands were “dirty” I soon realized that I printed both my right and left hands.

This gave me the idea of making a different type of the narration of the creation in which a child, rather than God, creates a colorful universe.

I used different handprints for each of God’s tasks and in each spread i printed my left palm on the left side and my right palm on the right.

I liked the idea that now, the board book had another layer: helping young children learn the concept of left and right and learning to tell their right hand from the left.

I experimented for a while and tried to keep the illustrations fresh in a way that will resemble children’s paintings.

I created a dummy and submitted it to PJ Library.

The members of the PJ Library committee that selects books for the Harold Grinspoon Foundation gave me very constructive feedback. I revised a couple of spreads and some of the text.

Finally they notified me and offered publication through PJ Publishing.

I also received the Author / Illustrator PJ Library generous award.

I launched the book in Israel, on the beach where water and sky mingle yet separate. I’m looking forwards to share the story with children all over the world and encouraged them to feel powerful by creating their own colorful world.

AMAILA’S BIO:

Amalia Hoffman is an award-winning author, illustrator. She’s also a storyteller and presents her books with puppets that look like characters in her stories.  Her picture book, My Monsterpiece  (Yeehoo Press) is the winner in the 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Award Picture book (Ages 0-5).

All Colors (Schiffer Publishing, 2019) is one of School Library Journal best board books, 2019.

The Brave Cyclist (Capstone Publishing, 2019, illustrated by Chiara Fedele) is a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection and a Bank Street College Selection Book.

Dreidel Day (Kar-Ben Publishing Group, 2018) is a PJ Library book and received the PJ Library Author Incentive Award.

She’s also author/illustrator of Astro Pea  (Schiffer Publishing, 2019) and Masha Munching (Yeehoo Press 2022)

Two more board books are launching in 2022:

Hanukkah Nights (Kar Ben Publishing) PJ Library Author/Illustrator Incentive Award.

My Hands Make the World (PJ Library Publishing) PJ Library Author/Illustrator Incentive Award.

Thank you Amalia for sharing your book and journey with us. I love that you launched your book while in Israel and I love the fingerpaint look of your illustrations. They are so vibrant. I am amazed how successful you were creating a book tackling the subject of creattion of the world and how simple you made it look to do so. Good luck with the book.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy