Join Hands: 2.5/5 stars

Summary:
The book is about children playing games, dancing, and just simply having fun. They have a pet parade, masquerade, dance, ice skate, and plan a hoopla day. Other than that, there is no story-line or plot to this book (that I can find) other than kids just being kids and having fun.

About the book:
This book of poetry is written in a Malaysian poetic form called “pantoum”; a repeating form written in a quatrain. Also, the 2nd and 4th lines become the 1st and 3rd lines on the next quatrain. (An example is written at the bottom). This type of poetry is sort of like a circle, which is why the author wrote it with the title “Join Hands” because when you do so, you form a circle. I found this book kind of strange and not with a good flow by just reading it. Once I read the pages with author’s notes, I now understand that the poem is written as a pantoum, which is not easily spotted and a very hard thing to write. Each page has one stanza written on it.

Where lines 2 and 4 become 1 and 3 in the next quatrain:
--The first quatrain:
-2nd line: “We sing canciones, too” AND 4th line: “We strut and ballyhoo”.

--The second quatrain:
-1st line: “Sometimes we sing soft, too” AND 3rd line: “Some read, some ballyhoo”.

Opinion:
I give it 2.5/5 stars because I personally do not like the book. I felt like it repeated things in a strange way along with having not a good flow. I found that having one stanza on each page broke up the book, made it choppy and lost its flow and the poetry. However, if the topic of “pantoum” ever comes up, this is a book to grab. ( )

This is a cute little book about what friends do together. It is a fun way to show how friends sing, dance, and create their own parade together! ( )

This book is about having fun with friends and family. Dancing can bring many joys so can singing and skipping! Join hands with all of your friends because everyone can bring something unique to the fun. This book is very diverse because there is all sorts of different cultures in here: Spanish, African, Asian, and Indian. This helps teach children that many people can come from various backgrounds, but they can also bring with them now, and fun things that we will all like to do. Everyone looks so different but yet are so much alike. For example, Spanish people do a dance called the Flamingo while the Indians dance to the beats of their drums. Although these two different cultures dance differently, they both still love to dance! This is a great way to expose children to many different cultures, and giving them a chance to see for themselves that all of these diverse cultures are not really so different from everyone else after all. ( )

The text consists of poem written in the form of a pantoum (form is explained at the end of the book), which is a repeating type poem based on a Malaysian poetic form. Main themes of the poem include, "celebrating your individual uniqueness and celebrating our wonderful diversity." The poem also contains interesting words like ballyhoo, hoopla, and masquerade. The poem is illustrated with photos of children from many different ethnicities. ( )