Hold Hands, a warm illustrated blanket for pre-k kids

Sara Varon has created graphic novels packed with friendly, anthropomorphic robots or animals who make shoes, knit scarves and are otherwise the kind of neighbors that you want to have. Hold Hands is a picture book that skews younger than Varon’s other work, while featuring the same, cartoon realistic animals that you wish were your neighbors. This is the kind of feel-good, rhyming, illustrated book that ages three-six will love as a goodnight book.

Hold Hands has a bigger canvas that Varon’s other books. It’s a book that printed with the text and illustrations presented in a landscape format. The result is a book that allows younger book fans to get lost in the illustrations. Each page is corner to corner, color and action. We see a capybara family holding hands as they head out to start their day. The father duck and the baby duck are holding hands when friends come over to play. As the sun trades places with the moon, they hold hands.

This is comfort food for the young kids who might have older siblings that enjoy Varon’s other books. It’s similar to how Little Big Nate has the same hallmarks of its well known characters that’s intended for slightly older readers. Except, here, Hold Hands fills the artistic mold of ducks, robots, chickens and elephants that look familiar.

The hand holding here is in that sweet spot of time when kids want or need to hold hands. They want to hold your hand because they small, irrepressibly cute and happy. There are also those times when they need to hold your hand, because the stairs are steep or you care for someone. Hold Hands is a simple, rhyming illustrated book that those young children will enjoy reading because of its rhyming text and friendly drawings.

Warm, friendly drawings, that’s the way to describe Varon’s work. In this book it’s a world where everyone is friendly and there are bright colored objects on every page. There are lots of people on the bus. All of the children are holding hands as they walk from the daycare center to the park. The main character’s younger sibling gets in on the day’s action also. The older sibling isn’t seen much, just at the breakfast table-so it’s just like real-life.

The characters in Hold Hands are genderless, but in a book this young it doesn’t matter. Readers could just as easily call the main character a boy as they could a girl. The only characters whose gender is obvious are the mother and father. I feel like Seinfeld when I say this, but, it’s not a big deal, especially considering the young ages that will read this book or have it read to them.

If you’re an existing fan of Sara Varon this book might not be for you, especially if you’re expecting it to demo to the same audience. If you’re game for a brisk and fun, rhyming picture book then come on in, the water’s fine. Think of this as a way for her to introduce her style of character to a new, slightly younger generation who are down with cute anthropomorphic animals.

Sara Varon is appearing at MALCon, the Milton Area Library Convention. MALCon is from 10:30-6 on Saturday, October 26 at the Milton Library, 855 Mayfield Road, Alpharetta, GA. There will be some cosplay meetings, anime screenings, publishing workshops and more. Varon will be hosting a graphic artist workshop at 1:30 where kids will get to draw and create their own characters. At 2:45 she’ll be co-hosting a panel called Graphic Novels for Kids. The entire day is free and kid-friendly.